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German Mystics

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LIGHT, LIFE,
AND LOVE

Selections from the German
Mystics of the Middle Ages

By W. R. Inge
1904

THEOLOGIA
GERMANICA

INTRODUCTION

w 1. THE PRECURSORS OF
THE GERMAN MYSTICS

TO most English readers the "Imitation of
Christ" is the representative of mediaeval
German mysticism. In reality, however, this
beautiful little treatise belongs to a period
when that movement had nearly spent itself.
Thomas a Kempis, as Dr. Bigg has said,
was only a semi-mystic. He tones down the
most characteristic doctrines of Eckhart, who
is the great original thinker of the German
mystical school, and seems in some ways to
revert to an earlier type of devotional
literature. The "Imitation" may perhaps be
described as an idealised picture of monastic
piety, drawn at a time when the life of the
cloister no longer filled a place of
unchallenged usefulness in the social order of
Europe. To find German mysticism at its
strongest we must go back a full hundred
years, and to understand its growth we must
retrace our steps as far as the great
awakening of the thirteenth century--the age
of chivalry in religion--the age of St. Louis, of
Francis and Dominic, of Bonaventura and
Thomas Aquinas. It was a vast revival,
bearing fruit in a new ardour of pity and
charity, as well as in a healthy freedom of
thought. The Church, in recognising the new
charitable orders of Francis and Dominic, and
the Christianised Aristotelianism of the
schoolmen, retained the loyalty and profited
by the zeal of the more sober reformers, but
was unable to prevent the diffusion of an
independent critical spirit, in part provoked
and justified by real abuses. Discontent was
aroused, not only by the worldiness of the
hierarchy, whose greed and luxurious living
were felt to be scandalous, but by the

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widespread economic distress which prevailed
over Western Europe at this period. The
crusades periodically swept off a large
proportion of the able-bodied men, of whom
the majority never returned to their homes,
and this helped to swell the number of
indigent women, who, having no male
protectors, were obliged to beg their bread.
The better class of these female mendicants
soon formed themselves into uncloistered
charitable Orders, who were not forbidden to
marry, and who devoted themselves chiefly
to the care of the sick. These Beguines and
the corresponding male associations of
Beghards became very numerous in Germany.
Their religious views were of a definite type.
Theirs was an intensely inward religion,
based on the longing of the soul for
immediate access to God. The more educated
among them tended to embrace a vague
idealistic Pantheism. Mechthild of Magdeburg
(1212-1277), prophetess, poetess, Church
reformer, quietist, was the ablest of the
Beguines. Her writings prove to us that the
technical terminology of German mysticism
was in use before Eckhart, and also that
the followers of what the "Theologia
Germanica" calls the False Light, who aspired
to absorption in the Godhead, and despised
the imitation of the incarnate Christ, were
already throwing discredit on the movement.
Mechthild's independence, and her unsparing
denunciations of corruption in high places,
brought her into conflict with the secular
clergy. They tried to burn her books— those
religious love songs which had already
endeared her to German popular sentiment.
It was then that she seemed to hear a voice
saying to her:

Lieb' meine, betrYbe dich nicht zu sehr, Die
Wahrheit mag niemand verbrennen!

The rulers of the Church, unhappily, were not
content with burning books. Their hostility
towards the unrecognised Orders became
more and more pronounced: the Beghards
and Beguines were harried and persecuted till
most of them were driven to join the
Franciscans or Dominicans, carrying with
them into those Orders the ferment of their
speculative mysticism. The more stubborn
"Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit" were
burned in batches at Cologne and elsewhere.
Their fate in those times did not excite much
pity, for many of the victims were idle
vagabonds of dissolute character, and the
general public probably thought that the
licensed begging friars were enough of a
nuisance without the addition of these free
lances.

The heretical mystical sects of the thirteenth
century are very interesting as illustrating the
chief dangers of mysticism. Some of these
sectaries were Socialists or Communists of an
extreme kind; others were Rationalists, who
taught that Jesus Christ was the son of
Joseph and a sinner like other men; others
were Puritans, who said that Church music
was "nothing but a hellish noise" (nihil nisi
clamor inferni), and that the Pope was the
magna meretrix of the Apocalypse. The
majority were Anti-Sacramentalists and

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Determinists; and some were openly
Antinomian, teaching that those who are led
by the Spirit can do no wrong. The followers
of Amalric of Bena piil believed that the Holy
Ghost had chosen their sect in which to
become incarnate; His presence among them
was a continual guarantee of sanctity and
happiness. The "spiritual Franciscans" had
dreams of a more apocalyptic kind. They
adopted the idea of an "eternal Gospel," as
expounded by Joachim of Floris, and believed
that the "third kingdom," that of the Spirit,
was about to begin among themselves. It
was to abolish the secular Church and to
inaugurate the reign of true Christianity— i.e.
"poverty" and asceticism.

Such are some of the results of what our
eighteenth-century ancestors knew and
dreaded as "Enthusiasm"--that ferment of the
spirit which in certain epochs spreads from
soul to soul like an epidemic, breaking all the
fetters of authority, despising tradition and
rejecting discipline in its eagerness to get rid
of formalism and unreality; a lawless,
turbulent, unmanageable spirit, in which,
notwithstanding, is a potentiality for good far
higher than any to which the lukewarm
"religion of all sensible men" can ever attain.
For mysticism is the raw material of all
religion; and it is easier to discipline the
enthusiast than to breathe enthusiasm into
the disciplinarian.

Meanwhile, the Church looked with favour
upon the orthodox mystical school, of which
Richard and Hugo of St. Victor, Bonaventura,
and Albertus Magnus were among the
greatest names. These men were working out
in their own fashion the psychology of the
contemplative life, showing how we may
ascend through "cogitation, meditation, and
speculation" to "contemplation," and how we
may pass successively through jubilus,
ebrietas spiritus, spiritualis jucunditas, and
liquefactio, till we attain raptus or ecstasy.
The writings of the scholastic mystics are so
overweighted with this pseudo-science, with
its wire-drawn distinctions and meaningless
classifications, that very few readers have
now the patience to dig out their numerous
beauties. They are, however, still the classics
of mystical theology in the Roman Church, so
far as that science has not degenerated into
mere miracle-mongering.

w 2. MEISTER ECKHART

It was in 1260, when Mechthild of Magdeburg
was at the height of her activity, that Meister
Eckhart, next to Plotinus the greatest
philosopher-mystic, was born at Hocheim in
Thuringia. It seems that his family was in a
good position, but nothing is known of his
early years. He entered the Dominican Order
as a youth, perhaps at sixteen, the earliest
age at which novices were admitted into that
Order. The course of instruction among the
Dominicans was as follows :--After two years,
during which the novice laid the foundations
of a good general education, he devoted the

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next two years to grammar, rhetoric, and
dialectic, and then the same amount of time
to what was called the Quadrivium, which
consisted of "arithmetic, mathematics,
astronomy, and music." Theology, the queen
of the sciences, occupied three years; and at
the end of the course, at the age of twenty-
five, the brothers were ordained priests. We
find Eckhart, towards the end of the century,
Prior of Erfurt and Vicar of Thuringia, then
Lector Biblicus at Paris, then Provincial Prior
of Saxony. In 1307 the master of the Order
appointed him Vicar-General for Bohemia,
and in 1311 he returned to Paris. We find him
next preaching busily at Strassburg,|"iv1 and
after a few more years, at Cologne, where
the persecution of the Brethren of the Free
Spirit was just then at its height. At
Strassburg there were no less than seven
convents of Dominican nuns, for since 1267
the Order had resumed the supervision of
female convents, which it had renounced a
short time after its foundation. Many of
Eckhart's discourses were addressed to these
congregations of devout women, who indeed
were to a large extent the backbone of the
mystical movement, and it is impossible not
to see that the devotional treatises of the
school are strongly coloured by feminine
sentiment. A curious poem, written by a
Dominican nun of this period, celebrates the
merits of three preachers, the third of whom
is a Master Eckhart, "who speaks to us about
Nothingness. He who understands him not, in
him has never shone the light divine." These
nuns seem to have been fed with the strong
meat of Eckhart's mystical philosophy; in the
more popular sermons he tried to be
intelligible to all. It was not very long after
he took up his residence at Cologne that he
was himself attacked for heresy. In 1327 he
read before his own Order a retractation of
"any errors which might be found" {si quid
errorum repertum fuerit) in his writings, but
withdrew nothing that he had actually said,
and protested that he believed himself to be
orthodox. He died a few months later, and it
was not till 1329 that a Papal bull was
issued, enumerating seventeen heretical and
eleven objectionable doctrines in his writings.

This bull is interesting as showing what were
the points in Eckhart's teaching which in the
fourteenth century were considered
dangerous. They also indicate very accurately
what are the real errors into which
speculative mysticism is liable to fall, and
how thinkers of this school may most
plausibly be misrepresented by those who
differ from them. After expressing his sorrow
that "a certain Teuton named Ekardus,
doctor, ut fertur, sacrae paginae, has wished
to know more than he should," and has sown
tares and thistles and other weeds in the
field of the Church, the Pope specifies the
following erroneous statements as appearing
in Eckhart's writings "God created the

world as soon as God was. 2. In every work,
bad as well as good, the glory of God is
equally manifested. 3. A man who prays for
any particular thing prays for an evil and
prays ill, for he prays for the negation of
good and the negation of God, and that God
may be denied to him Tvil 4. God is honoured
in those who have renounced everything,

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even holiness and the kingdom of heaven. 5.
We are transformed totally into God, even as
in the Sacrament the bread is converted into
the Body of Christ. Unum, non simile. 6.
Whatever God the Father gave to His only-
begotten Son in His human nature, He has
given it all to me. 7. Whatever the Holy
Scripture says about Christ is verified in every
good and godlike man. 8. External action is
not, properly speaking, good nor divine; God,
properly speaking, only works in us internal
actions. 9. God is one, in every way and
according to every reason, so that it is not
possible to find any plurality in Him, either in
the intellect or outside it; for he who sees
two, or sees any distinction, does not see
God; for God is one, outside number and
above number, for one cannot be put with
anything else, but follows it; therefore in God
Himself no distinction can be or be
understood. 10. All the creatures are
absolutely nothing: I say not that they are
small or something, but that they are
absolutely nothing." All these statements are
declared to have been found in his writings.
It is also "objected against the said Ekardus"
that he taught the following two articles in
these words:--l. "There is something in the
soul, which is uncreated and uncreatable: if
the whole soul were such, it would be
uncreated and uncreatable: and this is the
intelligence." 2. God is not good or better
or best: I speak ill when I call God good; it is
as if I called white black. "£y The bull
declares all the propositions above quoted to
be heretical, with the exception of the three
which I have numbered 8-10, and these "have
an ill sound" and are "very rash," even if they
might be so supplemented and explained as
to bear an orthodox sense.

This condemnation led to a long neglect of
Eckhart's writings. He was almost forgotten
till Franz Pfeiffer in 1857 collected and edited
his scattered treatises and endeavoured to
distinguish those which were genuine from
those which were spurious. Since Pfeiffer's
edition fresh discoveries have been made,
notably in 1880, when Denifle found at Erfurt
several important fragments in Latin, which
in his opinion show a closer dependence on
the scholastic theology, and particularly on St
Thomas Aquinas, than Protestant scholars,
such as Preger, had been willing to allow. But
the attempt to prove Eckhart a mere
scholastic is a failure; the audacities of his
German discourses cannot be explained as an
accommodation to the tastes of a peculiar
audience. For good or evil Eckhart is an
original and independent thinker, whose
theology is confined by no trammels of
authority.

w 3. ECKHART'S RELIGIOUS
PHILOSOPHY

The Godhead, according to Eckhart, is the
universal and eternal Unity comprehending
and transcending all diversity. "The Divine
nature is Rest," he says in one of the German
discourses; and in the Latin fragments we

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find: "God rests in Himself, and makes all
things rest in Him." The three Persons of the
Trinity, however, are not mere modes or
accidents, px] but represent a real distinction
within the Godhead. God is unchangeable,
and at the same time an "everlasting
process." The creatures are "absolutely
nothing"; but at the same time "God without
them would not be God," for God is love, and
must objectify Himself; He is goodness, and
must impart Himself. As the picture in the
mind of the painter, as the poem in the mind
of the poet, so was all creation in the mind
of God from all eternity, in uncreated
simplicity. The ideal world was not created in
time; "the Father spake Himself and all the
creatures in His Son"; "they exist in the
eternal Now"£xJ"

becoming, change without change." "The
Word of God the Father is the substance of
all that exists, the life of all that lives, the
principle and cause of life." Of creation he
says: "We must not falsely imagine that God
stood waiting for something to happen, that
He might create the world. For so soon as He
was God, so soon as He begat His coeternal
and coequal Son, He created the world." So
Spinoza says: "God has always been before
the creatures, without even existing before
them. He precedes them not by an interval of
time, but by a fixed eternity." This is not the
same as saying that the world of sense had
no beginning; it is possible that Eckhart did
not mean to go further than the orthodox
scholastic mystic, Albertus Magnus, who
says: "God created things from eternity, but
the things were not created from eternity." St
Augustine (Conf. xi. 30) bids objectors to
"understand that there can be no time
without creatures, and cease to talk
nonsense." Eckhart also tries to distinguish
between the "interior" and the "exterior"
action of God. God, he says, is in all things,
not as Nature, not as Person, but as Being.
He is everywhere, undivided; yet the
creatures participate in Him according to their
measure. The three Persons of the Trinity
have impressed their image upon the
creatures, yet it is only their "nothingness"
that keeps them separate creatures. Most of
this comes from the Neoplatonists, and much
of it through the pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite, a Platonising Christian of the
fifth century, whose writings were believed in
the Middle Ages to proceed from St Paul's
Athenian convert. It would, however, be easy
to find parallels in St Augustine's writings to
most of the phases quoted in this paragraph.
The practical consequences will be considered
presently.

The creatures are a way from God; they are
also a way to Him. "In Christ," he says, "all
the creatures are one man, and that man is
God." Grace, which is a real self-unfolding of
God in the soul, can make us "what God is by
Nature"--one of Eckhart's audacious phrases,
which are not really so unorthodox as they
sound. The following prayer, which appears in
one of his discourses, may perhaps be
defended as asking no more than our Lord
prayed for (John xvii.) for His disciples, but it
lays him open to the charge, which the
Pope's bull did not fail to urge against him,
that he made the servant equal to his Lord.

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"Grant that I, by Thy grace, may be united to
Thy Nature, as Thy Son is eternally one in
Thy Nature, and that grace may become my
nature."

The ethical aim is to be rid of
"creatureliness," and so to be united to God.
In Eckhart's system, as in that of Plotinus,
speculation is never divorced from ethics. On
our side the process is a negative one. All
our knowledge must be reduced to not-
knowledge; our reason and will, as well as
our lower faculties, must transcend
themselves, must die to live. We must
detach ourselves absolutely "even from God,"
he says. This state of spiritual nudity he calls
"poverty." Then, when our house is empty of
all else, God can dwell there: "He begets His
Son in us." This last phrase has always been
a favourite with the mystics. St Paul uses
very similar language, and the Epistle to
Diognetus, written in the second century,
speaks of Christ as, "being ever born anew in
the hearts of the saints." Very characteristic,
too, is the doctrine that complete
detachment from the creatures is the way to
union with God. Jacob Bshme has arrived
independently at the same conclusion as
Eckhart. "The scholar said to his master: How
may I come to the supersensual life, that I
may see God and hear Him speak? The
master said: When thou canst throw thyself
but for a moment into that place where no
creature dwelleth, then thou hearest what
God speaketh. The scholar asked : Is that
nearorfar off? The master replied: It is in
thee, and if thou canst for a while cease from
all thy thinking and willing, thou shalt hear
unspeakable words of God. The scholar said:
How can I hear, when I stand still from
thinking and willing? The master answered:
When thou standest still from the thinking
and willing of self, the eternal hearing,
seeing, and speaking will be revealed to
thee, and so God heareth and seeth through
thee."

In St Thomas Aquinas it is "the will
enlightened by reason" which unites us to
God. But there are two sorts of reason. The
passive reason is the faculty which rises
through discursive thinking to knowledge. The
active reason is a much higher faculty, which
exists by participation in the divine mind, "as
the air is light by participation in the
sunshine." When this active reason is
regarded as the standard of moral action, it
is called by Aquinas synteresis.[x Eckhart
was at first content with this teaching of St
Thomas, whom he always cites with great
reverence; but the whole tendency of his
thinking was to leave the unprofitable
classification of faculties in which the
Victorine School almost revelled, and to
concentrate his attention on the union of the
soul with God. And therefore in his more
developed teaching,£xj the "spark" which is
the point of contact between the soul and its
Maker is something higher than the faculties,
being "uncreated." He seems to waver about
identifying the "spark" with the "active
reason," but inclines on the whole to regard
it as something even higher still. "There is
something in the soul," he says, "which is so
akin to God that it is one with Him and not
merely united with Him." And again: "There is

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a force in the soul; and not only a force, but
something more, a being; and not only a
being, but something more; it is so pure and
high and noble in itself that no creature can
come there, and God alone can dwelt there.
Yea, verily, and even God cannot come there
with a form; He can only come with His
simple divine nature." And in the startling
passage often quoted against him, a passage
which illustrates admirably his affinity to one
side of Hegelianism, we read: "The eye with
which I see God is the same eye with which
He sees me. Mine eye and God's eye are one
eye and one sight and one knowledge and
one love."

I do not defend these passages as orthodox;
but before exclaiming "rank Pantheism!" we
ought to recollect that for Eckhart the being
of God is quite different from His personality.
Eckhart never taught that the Persons of the
Holy Trinity become, after the mystical Union,
the "Form" of the human soul. It is the
impersonal light of the divine nature which
transforms our nature; human personality is
neither lost nor converted into divine
personality. Moreover, the divine spark at the
centre of the soul is not the soul nor the
personality. "The soul," he says in one place,
using a figure which recurs in the "Theologia
Germanica," "has two faces. One is turned
towards this world and towards the body, the
other towards God." The complete dominion
of the "spark" over the soul is an unrealised
ideal. [xivl

The truth which he values is that, as Mr
Upton has well expressed it, "there is a
certain self-revelation of the eternal and
infinite One to the finite soul, and therefore
an indestructible basis for religious ideas and
beliefs as distinguished from what is called
scientific knowledge. . . . This immanent
universal principle does not pertain to, and is
not the property of any individual mind, but
belongs to that uncreated and eternal nature
of God which lies deeper than all those
differences which separate individual minds
from each other, and is indeed that
incarnation of the Eternal, who though He is
present in every finite thing, is still not
broken up into individualities, but remains
one and the same eternal substance, one and
the same unifying principle, immanently and
indivisibly present in every one of the
countless plurality of finite individuals." It
might further be urged that neither God nor
man can be understood in independence of
each other. A recent writer on ethics, not
too well disposed towards Christianity, is, I
think, right in saying: "To the popular mind,
which assumes God and man to be two
different realities, each given in
independence of the other, . . . the
identification of man's love of God with God's
love of Himself has always been a paradox
and a stumbling-block. But it is not too much
to say that until it has been seen to be no
paradox, but a simple and fundamental truth,
the masterpieces of the world's religious
literature must remain a sealed book to us."

Eckhart certainly believed himself to have
escaped the pitfall of Pantheism; but he
often expressed himself in such an unguarded
way that the charge may be brought against

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him with some show of reason.

Love, Eckhart teaches, is the principle of all
virtues; it is God Himself. Next to it in
dignity comes humility. The beauty of the
soul, he says in the true Platonic vein, is to
be well ordered, with the higher faculties
above the lower, each in its proper place. The
will should be supreme over the
understanding, the understanding over the
senses. Whatever we will earnestly, that we
have, and no one can hinder us from
attaining that detachment from the creatures
in which our blessedness consists.

Evil, from the highest standpoint, is only a
means for realising the eternal aim of God in
creation; all will ultimately be overruled for
good. Nevertheless, we can frustrate the
good will of God towards us, and it is this,
and not the thought of any insult against
Himself, that makes God grieve for our sins.
It would not be worth while to give any more
quotations on this subject, for Eckhart is not
more successful than other philosophers in
propounding a consistent and intelligible
theory of the place of evil in the universe.

Eckhart is well aware of the two chief pitfalls
into which the mystic is liable to fall--dreamy
inactivity and Antinomianism. The sects of
the Free Spirit seem to have afforded a good
object-lesson in both these errors, as some
of the Gnostic sects did in the second
century. Eckhart's teaching here is sound and
good. Freedom from law, he says, belongs
only to the "spark," not to the faculties of the
soul, and no man can live always on the
highest plane. Contemplation is, in a sense,
a means to activity; works of charity are its
proper fruit. "If a man were in an ecstasy like
that of St Paul, when he was caught up into
the third heaven, and knew of a poor man
who needed his help, he ought to leave his
ecstasy and help the needy." SusoJVx tells
us how God punished him for disregarding
this duty. True contemplation considers
Reality (or Being) in its manifestations as
well as in its origin. If this is remembered,
there need be no conflict between social
morality and the inner life. Eckhart
recognises that it is a harder and a

nobler task to preserve detachment in a
crowd than in a cell; the little daily sacrifices
of family life are often a greater trial than
self-imposed mortifications. "We need not
destroy any little good in ourselves for the
sake of a better, but we should strive to
grasp every truth in its highest meaning, for
no one good contradicts another." "Love God,
and do as you like, say the Free Spirits. Yes;
but as long as you like anything contrary to
God's will, you do not love Him."

There is much more of the same kind in
Eckhart's sermons--as good and sensible
doctrine as one could find anywhere. But
what was the practical effect of his teaching
as a whole? It is generally the case that the
really weak points of any religious movement
are exposed with a cruel logicality most
exasperating to the leaders by the second
generation of its adherents. The dangerous
side of the Eckhartian mysticism is painfully
exhibited in the life of his spiritual daughter,
"Schwester Katrei," the saint of the later

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Beguines. Katrei is a rather shadowy person;
but for our present purpose it does not much
matter whether the story of her life has been
embroidered or not. Her memory was revered
for such sayings and doings as these which
follow. On one occasion she exclaimed:
"Congratulate me; I have become God!" and
on another she declared that "not even the
desire of heaven should tempt a good man
towards activity." It was her ambition to
forget who were her parents, to be indifferent
whether she received absolution and partook
of the Holy Communion or not; and she
finally realised her ambition by falling into a
cataleptic state in which she was supposed
to be dead, and was carried out for burial.
Her confessor, perceiving that she was not
really dead, awoke her: "Art thou satisfied?"
"I am satisfied at last," said Katrei: she was
now "dead all through," as she wished to be.

Are we to conclude that the logical outcome
of mysticism is this strange reproduction, in
Teutonic Europe, of Indian Yogism? Many who
have studied the subject have satisfied
themselves that Schwester Katrei is the truly
consistent mystic. They have come to the
conclusion that the real attraction of
mysticism is a pining for deliverance from
this fretful, anxious, exacting, individual life,
and a yearning for absorption into the great
Abyss where all distinctions are merged in
the Infinite. According to this view, mysticism
in its purest form should be studied in the
ancient religious literature of India, which
teaches us how all this world of colour and
diversity, of sharp outlines and conflicting
forces, may be lost and swallowed up in the
"white radiance," or black darkness (it does
not really matter which we call it) of an
empty Infinite.

The present writer is convinced that this is
not the truth about mysticism. Eckhart may
have encouraged Schwester Katrei in her
attempt to substitute the living death of the
blank trance for the dying life of Christian
charity; but none the less she caricatured and
stultified his teaching. And I think it is
possible to lay our finger on the place where
she and so many others went wrong. The
aspiration of mysticism is to find the unity
which underlies all diversity, or, in religious
language, to see God face to face. From the
Many to the One is always the path of the
mystic. Plotinus, the father of all mystical
philosophy in Europe (unless, as he himself
would have wished, we give that honour to
Plato), mapped out the upward road as
follows:--At the bottom of the hill is the
sphere of the "merely many"--of material
objects viewed in disconnection, dull, and
spiritless. This is a world which has no real
existence; it may best be called "not-being"
("ein lauteres Nichts," as Eckhart says), and
as the indeterminate, it can only be
apprehended by a corresponding
indeterminateness in the soul. The soul,
however, always adds some form and
determination to the abstract formlessness of
the "merely many." Next, we rise to, or
project for ourselves, the world of "the one
and the many." This is the sphere in which
our consciousness normally moves. We are
conscious of an overruling Mind, but the
creatures still seem external to and partially

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independent of it. Such is the temporal order
as we know it. Above this is the intelligible
world, the eternal order, "the one-many," das
ewige Nu, the world in which God's will is
done perfectly and all reflects the divine
mind. Highest of all is "the One," the,
Absolute, the Godhead, of whom nothing can
be predicated, because He is above all
distinctions. This Neoplatonic Absolute is the
Godhead of whom Eckhart says: "God never
looked upon deed," and of whom Angelus
Silesius sings:

"Und sieh, er ist nicht Wille, Er ist ein'
ewige Stille."

Plotinus taught that the One, being
superessential, can only be apprehended in
ecstasy, when thought, which still
distinguishes itself from its object, is
transcended, and knower and known become
one. As Tennyson's Ancient Sage says:

"If thou would'st hear the Nameless, and
descend

Into the Temple-cave of thine own self,

There, brooding by the central altar, thou

May'st haply learn the Nameless hath a
voice,

By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise;
For knowledge is the swallow on the lake,
That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there
But never yet hath dipt into the Abysm."

In the same way Eckhart taught that no
creature can apprehend the Godhead, and,
therefore, that the spark in the centre of the
soul (this doctrine, too, is found in Plotinus)
must be verily divine. The logic of the theory
is inexorable. If only like can know like, we
cannot know God except by a faculty which is
itself divine. The real question is whether
God, as an object of knowledge and worship
for finite beings, Is the absolute Godhead,
who transcends all distinctions. The
mediaeval mystics held that this "flight of
the alone to the alone," as Plotinus calls it,
is possible to men, and that in it consists our
highest blessedness. They were attracted
towards this view by several influences. First,
there was the tradition of Dionysius, to whom
(e.g.) the author of the "Theologia
Germanica" appeals as an authority for the
possibility of "beholding the hidden things of
God by utter abandonment of thyself, and of
entering into union with Him who is above all
existence, and all knowledge." Secondly,
there was what a modern writer has called
"the attraction of the Abyss," the longing
which some persons feel very strongly to
merge their individuality in a larger and
better whole, to get rid not only of
selfishness but of self for ever. "Leave
nothing of myself in me," is Crashaw's prayer

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in his wonderful poem on St Teresa. Thirdly,
we may mention the awe and respect long
paid to ecstatic trances, the pathological
nature of which was not understood. The
blank trance was a real experience; and as it
could be induced by a long course of ascetical
exercises and fervid devotions, it was
naturally regarded as the crowning reward of
sanctity on earth. Nor would it be at all safe
to reject the evidence, which is very
copious. Txixl that the "dreamy state" may
issue in permanent spiritual gain. The
methodical cultivation of it, which is at the
bottom of most of the strange austerities of
the ascetics, was not only (though it was
partly) practised in the hope of enjoying
those spiritual raptures which are described
as being far more intense than any pleasures
of sense : it was the hope of stirring to its
depths the subconscious mind and
permeating the whole with the hidden energy
of the divine Spirit that led to the desire for
visions and trances. Lastly, I think we must
give a place to the intellectual attraction of
an uncompromising monistic theory of the
universe. Spiritualistic monism, when it is
consistent with itself, will always lean to
semi-pantheistic mysticism rather than to
such a compromise with pluralism as Lotze
and his numerous followers in this country
imagine to be possible.

But it is possible to go a long way with the
mystics and yet to maintain that under no
conditions whatever can a finite being escape
from the limitations of his finitude and see
God or the world or himself "with the same
eye with which God sees" all things. The old
Hebrew belief, that to see the face of God is
death, expresses the truth under a mythical
form. That the human mind, while still "in the
body pent," may obtain glimpses of the
eternal order, and enjoy foretastes of the
bliss of heaven, is a belief which I, at least,
see no reason to reject. It involves no rash
presumption, and is not contrary to what may
be readily believed about the state of
immortal spirits passing through a mortal
life. But the explanation of the blank trance
as a temporary transit into the Absolute must
be set down as a pure delusion. It involves a
conception of the divine "Rest" which in his
best moments Eckhart himself repudiates.
"The Rest of the Godhead," he says, "is not
in that He is the source of being, but in that
He is the consummation of all being." This
profound saying expresses the truth, which
he seems often to forget, that the world-
process must have a real value in God's
sight--that it is not a mere polarisation of
the white radiance of eternity broken up by
the imperfection of our vision. Whatever
theories we may hold about Absolute Being,
or an Absolute that is above Being, we must
make room for the Will, and for Time, which
is the "form" of the will, and for the creatures
who inhabit time and space, as having for us
the value of reality. Nor shall we, if we are to
escape scepticism, be willing to admit that
these appearances have no sure relation to
ultimate reality. We must not try to uncreate
the world in order to find God. We were
created out of nothing, but we cannot return
to nothing, to find our Creator there. The
still, small voice is best listened for amid the

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discordant harmony of life and death.

The search for God is no exception to the
mysterious law of human nature, that we
cannot get anything worth having--neither
holiness nor happiness nor wisdom — by trying
for it directly. It must be given us through
something else. The recluse who lives like
Parnell's "Hermit":

"Prayer all his business, all his pleasure
praise,"

is not only a poor sort of saint, but he will
offer a poor sort of prayers and praises. He
will miss real holiness for the same reason
that makes the pleasure-seeker miss real
happiness. We must lose ourselves in some
worthy interest in order to find again both a
better self and an object higher than that
which we sought. This the German mystics in
a sense knew well. There is a noble sentence
of Suso to the effect that "he who realises
the inward in the outward, to him the inward
becomes more inward than to him who only
recognises the inward in the inward."
Moreover, the recognition that "God
manifests Himself and worketh more in one
creature than another" ("Theologia
Germanica"), involves a denial of the
nihilistic view that all the creatures are "ein
lauteres Nichts." \xxi It would be easy to find
such passages in all the fourteenth-century
mystics, but it cannot be denied that on the
whole their religion is too self-centred. There
are not many maxims so fundamentally
wrong-headed and un-Christian as Suso's
advice to "live as if you were the only person
in the world." The life of the cloistered
saint may be abundantly justified—for the
spiritual activity of some of them has been of
far greater service to mankind than the fussy
benevolence of many "practical" busybodies--
but the idea of social service, whether in the
school of Martha or of Mary, ought surely
never to be absent. The image of Christ as
the Lover of the individual soul rather than as
the Bridegroom of the Church was too dear to
these lonely men and women. Unconsciously,
they looked to their personal devotions to
compensate them for the human loves which
they had forsworn. The raptures of Divine
Love, which they regarded as signal favours
bestowed upon them, were not very
wholesome in themselves, and diverted their
thoughts from the needs of their fellow-men.
They also led to most painful reactions, in
which the poor contemplative believed
himself abandoned by God and became a
pray to terrible depression and melancholy.
These fits of wretchedness came indeed to
be recognised as God's punishment for
selfishness in devotion and for too great
desire for the sweetness of communing with
God, and so arose the doctrine of
"disinterested love," which was more and
more emphasised in the later mysticism,
especially by the French Quietists.

I have spoken quite candidly of the defects of
Eckhart's mystical Christianity. As a religious
philosophy it does not keep clear of the

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fallacy that an ascent though the unreal can
lead to reality. "To suppose, as the mystic
does, that the finite search has of itself no
Being at all, is illusory, is Maya, is itself
nothing, this is also to deprive the Absolute
of even its poor value as a contrasting goal.
For a goal that is a goal of no real process
has as little value as it has content." xxiii]
But, as Prof. Royce says, mysticism furnishes
us with the means of correcting itself. It
supplies an obvious reductio ad absurdum of
the theory with which it set out, that
"Immediacy is the one test of reality," and is
itself forced to give the world of diversity a
real value as manifesting in different degrees
the nature of God. Those who are acquainted
with the sacred books of the East will
recognise that here is the decisive departure
from real Pantheism. And it may be fairly
claimed for the German mystics that though
their speculative teaching sometimes seems
to echo too ominously the apathetic
detachment of the Indian sage, their lives
and example, and their practical
exhortations, preached a truer and a larger
philosophy. Eckhart, as we have seen, was a
busy preacher as well as a keen student, and
some of the younger members of his school
were even more occupied in pastoral work. If
the tree is to be judged by its fruits,
mysticism can give a very good account of
itself to the Marthas as well as the Marys of
this world.

w 4. THE GERMAN MYSTICS AS
GUIDES TO HOLINESS

THIS little volume is a contribution to a
"Library of Devotion," and in the body of the
work the reader will be seldom troubled by
any abstruse philosophising. I have thought
it necessary to give, in this Introduction, a
short account of Eckhart's system, but the
extracts which follow are taken mainly from
his successors, in whom the speculative
tendency is weaker and less original, while
the religious element is stronger and more
attractive. It is, after all, as guides to
holiness that these mystics are chiefly
important to us. This side of their life's work
can never be out of date, for the deeper
currents of human nature change but little;
the language of the heart is readily
understood everywhere and at all times. The
differences between Catholic and Protestant
are hardly felt in the keen air of these high
summits. It was Luther himself who
discovered the "Theologia Germanica" and
said of it that, "next to the Bible and St
Augustine, no book hath ever come into my
hands whence I have learnt or would wish to
learn more of what God and Christ and man
and all things are. I thank God that I have
heard and found my God in the German
tongue, as I have not yet found Him in Latin,
Greek, or Hebrew." The theology of these
mystics takes us straight back to the
Johannine doctrine of Christ as the all-
pervading Word of God, by whom all things
were made and in whom all things hold
together. He is not far from any one of us if

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we will but seek Him where He is to be
found--in the innermost sanctuary of our
personal life. In personal religion this means
that no part of revelation is to be regarded
as past, isolated, or external. "We should
mark and know of a very truth," says the
author of the "Theologia Germanica," "that all
manner of virtue and goodness, and even the
eternal Good which is God Himself, can never
make a man virtuous, good, or happy, so long
as it is outside the soul." In the same spirit
Jacob Bshme, 250 years later, says: "If the
sacrifice of Christ is to avail for me, it must
be wrought in me." Or, as his English
admirer, William Law, puts it: "Christ given
for us is neither more nor less than Christ
given into us. He is in no other sense our
full, perfect, and sufficient Atonement than
as His nature and spirit are born and formed
in us." The whole process of redemption must
in a sense be reenacted in the inner life of
every Christian. And as Christ emptied
Himself for our sakes, so must we empty
ourselves of all self-seeking. "When the
creature claimeth for its own anything good,
such as life, knowledge, or power, and in
short whatever we commonly call good, as if
it were that, or possessed that--it goeth
astray." Sin is nothing else but self-
assertion, self-will. "Be assured," says the
"Theologia Germanica," "that he who helpeth
a man to his own will, helpeth him to the
worst that he can." He, therefore, who is
"simply and wholly bereft of self" is delivered
from sin, and God alone reigns in his inmost
soul. Concerning the highest part or faculty of
the soul, the author of this little treatise
follows Eckhart, but cautiously. "The True
Light," he says, is that eternal Light which is
God; or else it is a created light, but yet
Divine, which is called grace." In either case,
"where God dwells in a godly man, in such a
man somewhat appertaineth to God which is
His own, and belongs to Him only and not to
the creature." This doctrine of divine
immanence, for which there is ample warrant
in the New Testament, is the real kernel of
German mysticism. It is a doctrine which,
when rightly used, may make this world a
foretaste of heaven, but alas! the "False
Light" is always trying to counterfeit the true.
In the imitation of the suffering life of Christ
lies the only means of escaping the
deceptions of the Evil One. "The False Light
dreameth itself to be God, and sinless"; but
"none is without sin; if any is without
consciousness of sin, he must be either
Christ or the Evil Spirit."

Very characteristic is the teaching of all these
writers about rewards and punishments.
Without in any way impugning the Church
doctrine of future retribution, they yet agree
with Benjamin Whichcote, the Cambridge
Platonist, that "heaven is first a temper, then
a place"; while of hell there is much to recall
the noble sentence of Juliana of Norwich, the
fourteenth-century visionary, "to me was
showed no harder hell than sin." "Nothing
burneth in hell but self-will," is a saying in
the "Theologia Germanica. "£x ivl They insist
that the difference between heaven and hell
is not that one is a place of enjoyment, the
other of torment; it is that in the one we are
with Christ, in the other without Him. "The

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Christlike life is not chosen," to quote the
"Theologia Germanica" once more, "in order
to serve any end, or to get anything by it,
but for love of its nobleness, and because
God loveth and esteemeth it so highly. He
who doth not take it up for love, hath none of
it at all; he may dream indeed that he hath
put it on, but he is deceived. Christ did not
lead such a life as this for the sake of
reward, but out of love, and love maketh
such a life light, and taketh away all its
hardships, so that it becometh sweet and is
gladly endured." The truly religious man is
always more concerned about what God will
do in him than what He will do to him; in his
intense desire for the purification of his
motives he almost wishes that heaven and
hell were blotted out, that he might serve
God for Himself alone.

w 5. WRITERS OF THE SCHOOL
OF ECKHART--TAULER

Such are the main characteristics of the
religious teachings which we find in the
German mystics. Among the successors of
Eckhart, from whose writings the following
extracts are taken, the most notable names
are those of Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek.
From Tauler I have taken very little, because
a volume of selections from his sermons has
already appeared in this series. £>c
Accordingly, it will only be necessary to
mention a very few facts about his life.

John Tauler was born at Strassburg about
1300, and studied at the Dominican convents
of Strassburg and Cologne. At both places he
doubtless heard the sermons of Eckhart. In
1329 the great interdict began at Strassburg,
and was stoutly resisted by many of the
clergy. It is a disputed point whether Tauler
himself obeyed the Papal decree or not. His
uneventful life, which was devoted to study,
preaching, and pastoral work, came to an end
in 1361. Like Eckhart, he had a favourite
"spiritual daughter," Margaret Ebner, who won
a great reputation as a visionary.

w 6. SUSO

Henry Suso was born in 1295 and died in
1365. His autobiography was published not
long before his death. He is the poet of the
band. The romance of saintship is depicted
by him with a strange vividness which
alternately attracts and repels, or even
disgusts, the modern reader. The whole-
hearted devotion of the "Servitor" to the
"Divine Wisdom," the tender beauty of the
visions^and conversations, and the occasional
na»vetZ of the narrative, which shows that
the saint remained very human throughout,
make Suso's books delightful reading; but the
accounts of the horrible macerations to which
he subjected himself for many years shock

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our moral sense almost as much as our
sensibilities; we do not now believe that God
takes pleasure in sufferings inflicted in His
honour. Moreover, the erotic symbolism of
the visions is occasionally unpleasant: we are
no longer in the company of such sane and
healthy people as Eckhart and Tauler. The
half-sensuous pleasure of ecstasy was
evidently a temptation to Suso, and the
violent alternations of rapture and misery
which he experienced suggest a neurotic and
ill-balanced temperament. Ixxvij.

On this subject--the pathological side of
mysticism--a few remarks will not be out of
place, for there has been much discussion of
it lately. A great deal of nonsense has been
written on the connexion between religion
and neuroticism. To quote Professor James'
vigorous protest, "medical materialism
finishes up St Paul by calling his vision on
the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of
the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It
snuffs out St Teresa as an hysteric, St Francis
of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George
Fox's discontent with the shams of his age,
and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats
as a symptom of a disordered colon. Carlyle's
organ-tones of misery it accounts for by a
gastro-duodenal catarrh. All such mental
over-tensions, it says, are, when you come to
the bottom of the matter, mere affairs of
diathesis (auto-intoxications most probably),
due to the perverted action of various glands
which physiology will yet discover. "|"x;
Now, even if it were true that most religious
geniuses, like most other geniuses, have
been "psychopaths" of one kind or another,
this fact in no way disposes of the value of
their intuitions and experiences. Nearly all
the great benefactors of humanity have been
persons of one-sided, and therefore ill-
balanced, characters. Even Maudsley admits
that "Nature may find an incomplete mind a
more suitable instrument for a particular
purpose. It is the work that is done, and the
quality in the worker by which it is done, that
is alone of moment; and it may be no great
matter from a cosmical standpoint, if in other
qualities of character he (the genius) was
singularly defective." Except in the

character of our Lord Himself, there are
visible imperfections in the record of every
great saint; but that is no reason for allowing
such traces of human infirmity to discredit
what is pure and good in their work. More
particularly, it would be a great pity to let our
minds dwell on the favourite materialistic
theory that saintliness, especially as
cultivated and venerated by Catholicism, has
its basis in "perverted sexuality." There is
enough plausibility in the theory to make it
mischievous. The allegorical interpretation of
the Book of Canticles was in truth the source
of, or at least the model for, a vast amount
of unwholesome and repulsive pietism. Not a
word need be said for such a paltry narrative
of endearments and sickly compliments as
the "Revelations of the Nun Gertrude," in the
thirteenth century. Nor are we concerned to
deny that the artificially induced ecstasy,
which is desired on account of the intense
pleasure which is said to accompany it,
nearly always contains elements the
recognition of which would shock and distress

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the contemplatives themselves, Txxixl There
are, however, other elements, of a less
insidious kind, which make the ecstatic
trance seem desirable. These are, according
to Professor Leuba, the calming of the
restless intellect by the concentration of the
mind on one object; the longing for a support
and comfort more perfect than man can give;
and, thirdly, the consecration and
strengthening of the will, which is often a
permanent effect of the trance. These are
legitimate objects of desire, and in many of
the mystics they are much more prominent
than any tendencies which might be
considered morbid. As regards the larger
question, about the alleged pathological
character of all distinctively religious
exaltation, I believe that no greater mistake
could be made than to suppose that the
religious life flourishes best in unnatural
circumstances. Religion, from a biological
standpoint, I take to be the expression of the
racial will to live; its function (from this point
of view) is the preservation and development
of humanity on the highest possible level. If
this is true, a simple, healthy, natural life
must be the most favourable for religious
excellence—and this I believe to be the case.
Poor Suso certainly did not lead a healthy or
natural life. But in his case, though the
suppressed natural instincts obviously
overflow into the religious consciousness and
in part determine the forms which his
devotion assumes, we can never forget that
we are in the company of a poet and a saint
who will lift us, if we can follow him, into a
very high region of the spiritual life, an
altitude which he has himself climbed with
bleeding feet.

The simple confidence which at the end of
the dialogue he expresses in the value of his
work is, I think, amply justified. "Whoever
will read these writings of mine in a right
spirit, can hardly fail to be stirred to the
depths of his soul, either to fervent love, or
to new light, or to hunger and thirst for God,
or to hatred and loathing for his sins, or to
that spiritual aspiration by which the soul is
renewed in grace."

w 7. RUYSBROEK

[Note: the Ruysbroek selection has not been
reproduced in this electronic edition. An
electronic text of a larger collection of
Ruysbroek's works may be available.]

w 8. THEOLOGIA GERMANICA

The "Theologia Germanica," an isolated
treatise of no great length by an unknown
author, was written towards the end of the
fourteenth century by one of the
Gottesfreunde, a widespread association of
pious souls in Germany. He is said to have
been "a priest and warden of the house of

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the Teutonic Order at Frankfort." His book is
both the latest and one of the most
important productions of the German mystical
school founded by Eckhart. The author is a
deeply religious philosopher, as much
interested in speculative mysticism as
Eckhart himself, but as thoroughly penetrated
with devout feeling as Thomas * Kempis. The
treatise should be read by all, as one of the
very best devotional works in any language.
My only reason for not translating it in full
here is that a good English translation
already exists,J\x> so that it seemed
unnecessary to offer a new one to the public.
I have therefore only translated a few
characteristic passages, which are very far
from exhausting its beauties, and a few of
the more striking aphorisms, which indicate
the main points in the religious philosophy of
the writer.

w 9. MODERN MYSTICISM

The revival of interest in the old mystical
writers is not surprising when we consider the
whole trend of modern thought. Among
recent philosophers--though Lotze, perhaps
the greatest name among them, is
unsympathetic, in consequence of his over-
rigid theory of personality—the great
psychologist Fechner, whose religious
philosophy is not so well known in this
country as it deserves to be, has with some
justice been called a mystic. And our own
greatest living metaphysician, Mr F.H.
Bradley, has expounded the dialectic of
speculative mysticism with unequalled power,
though with a bias against Christianity.
Another significant fact is the great
popularity, all over Europe, of Maeterlinck's
mystical works, "Le TrZsor des Humbles," "La
Sagesse et la DestinZe," and "Le Temple
Enseveli."

The growing science of psychology has begun
to turn its attention seriously to the study of
the religious faculty. Several able men have
set themselves to collect material which may
form the basis of an inductive science.
Personal experiences, communicated by many
persons of both sexes and of various ages,
occupations, and levels of culture, have been
brought together and tabulated. It is claimed
that important facts have already been
established, particularly in connexion with
the phenomena of conversion, by this
method. The results have certainly been more
than enough to justify confidence in the
soundness of the method, and hope that the
new science may have a great future before
it. Towards mysticism, recent writers on the
psychology of religion have been less
favourable than the pure metaphysicians.
While the latter have shown a tendency
towards Pantheism and Determinism, which
makes them sympathise with the general
trend of speculative mysticism, psychology
seems just at present to lean towards a
pluralistic metaphysic and a belief in free-will
or even in chance. This attitude is especially
noticeable in the now famous Gifford Lectures

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of Professor W illiam James rxxxil and in the
recent volume of essays written at
Oxford. | But even if the rising tide of
neo-Kantianism should cause the speculative
mystics to be regarded with disfavour,
nothing can prevent the religion of the
twentieth century from being mystical in
type. The strongest wish of a vast number of
earnest men and women to-day is for a basis
of religious belief which shall rest, not upon
tradition or external authority or historical
evidence, but upon the ascertainable facts of
human experience. The craving for
immediacy, which we have seen to be
characteristic of all mysticism, now takes the
form of a desire to establish the validity of
the God-consciousness as a normal part of
the healthy inner life. We may perhaps
venture to predict that the Christian biologist
of the future will turn the Pauline Christology
into his own dialect somewhat after the
following fashion:--"The function of religion in
the human race is closely analogous to, if not
identical with, that of instinct in the lower
animals. Religion is the racial will to live;
not, however, to live anyhow and at all costs,
but to live as human beings, conforming as
far as possible to the highest type of
humanity. Religion, therefore, acts as a
higher instinct, inhibiting all self-destroying
and race-destroying impulses in the interest
of a larger self than the individual life." To
turn this statement into theological form it is
only necessary to claim that the "perfect
man" which the religious instinct is trying to
form is "the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ," that that perfect humanity
was once realised in the historical Christ, and
that the higher instinct within us--ourselves,
yet not ourselves--which makes for life and
righteousness, and is the source of all the
good that we can think, say, or do, may (in
virtue of that historical incarnation) be justly
called the indwelling Christ. This is all that
the Christian mystic needs.

w 10. SPECIMENS OF MODERN
MYSTICISM

I conclude this introductory essay with a few
extracts from recent American books on the
psychology of religion. It is interesting to find
some of the strangest experiences of the
cloister reproduced under the very different
conditions of modern American life. The
quotations will serve to show how farTauler
and the "Theologia Germanica" are from
being out of date.

"The thing which impressed me most" (says a
correspondent of Professor William
James)J\x; "was learning the fact that we
must be in absolutely constant relation or
mental touch with that essence of life which
permeates all and which we call God. This is
almost unrecognisable unless we live into it
ourselves actually— that is, by a constant
turning to the very innermost, deepest
consciousness of our real selves or of God in
us, for illumination from within, just as we
turn to the sun for light, warmth, and

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invigoration without. When you do this
consciously, realising that to turn inward to
the light within you is to live in the presence
of God or of your Divine self, you soon
discover the unreality of the objects to which
you have hitherto been turning and which
have engrossed you without."

The next quotation comes from a small book
by one of the "New Thought" or "Mind Cure"
school in America. The enormous sale of the
volume testifies to the popularity of the
teaching which it contains. {xxxryj

"Intuition is an inner spiritual sense through
which man is opened to the direct revelation
and knowledge of God, the secret of nature
and life, and through which he is brought into
conscious unity and fellowship with God, and
made to realise his own deific nature and
supremacy of being as the son of God.
Spiritual supremacy and illumination thus
realised through the development and
perfection of intuition under divine inspiration
gives the perfect inner vision and direct
insight into the character, properties, and
purpose of all things to which the attention
and interest are directed. It is, we repeat, a
spiritual sense opening inwardly, as the
physical senses open outwardly; and because
it has the capacity to perceive, grasp, and
know the truth at first hand, independent of
all external sources of information, we call it
intuition. All inspired teaching and spiritual
revelations are based upon the recognition of
this spiritual faculty of the soul and its power
to receive and appropriate them. Conscious
unity of man in spirit and purpose with the
Father, born out of his supreme desire and
trust, opens his soul through this inner sense
to immediate aspiration and enlightenment
from the divine omniscience, and the co-
operative energy of the divine omnipotence,
under which he becomes a seer and a master.
On this higher plane of realised spiritual life
in the flesh the mind acts with unfettered
freedom and unbiassed vision, grasping truth
at first hand, independent of all external
sources of information. Approaching all
beings and things from the divine side, they
are seen in the light of the divine
omniscience. God's purpose in them,

and so the truth concerning them, as it rests
in the mind of God, are thus revealed by
direct illumination from the divine mind, to
which the soul is opened inwardly through
this spiritual sense we call intuition."

The practice of meditation "without images,"
as the mediaeval mystics called it, is
specially recommended. "Many will receive
great help, and many will be entirely healed
by a practice somewhat after the following
nature :— W ith a mind at peace, and with a
heart going out in love to all, go into the
quiet of your own interior self , holding the
thought, I am one with the Infinite Spirit of
Life, the life of my life. I now open my body,
in which disease has gotten a foothold, I
open it fully to the inflowing tide of this
infinite life, and it now, even now, is pouring
in and coursing through my body, and the
healing process is going on." "If you would
find the highest, the fullest, and the richest
life that not only this world but that any
world can know, then do away with the sense

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of the separateness of your life from the life
of God. Hold to the thought of your oneness.
In the degree that you do this, you will find
yourself realising it more and more, and as
this life of realisation is lived, you will find
that no good thing will be withheld, for all
things are included in this."Xx

This modern mysticism is very much
entangled with theories about the cure of
bodily disease by suggestion; and it is fair to
warn those who are unacquainted with the
books of this sect that they will find much
fantastic superstition mixed with a
stimulating faith in the inner light as the
voice of God.

But whatever may be the course of this
particular movement there can be no doubt
that the Americans, like ourselves, are only
at the beginning of a great revival of mystical
religion. The movement will probably follow
the same course as the mediaeval movement
in Germany, with which this little book is
concerned. It will have its philosophical
supportees, who will press their speculation
to the verge of Pantheism, perhaps reviving
the Logos-cosmology of the Christian
Alexandrians under the form of the pan-
psychism of Lotze and Fechner. It will have
its evangelists like Tauler, who will carry to
our crowded town populations the glad
tidings that the kingdom of God is not here
or there, but within the hearts of all who will
seek for it within them. It will assuredly
attract some to a life of solitary
contemplation; while others, intellectually
weaker or less serious, will follow the various
theosophical and theurgical delusions which,
from the days of Iamblichus downward, have
dogged the heels of mysticism. For the "False
Light" against which the "Theologia
Germanica" warns us is as dangerous as
ever; we may even live to see some new
"Brethren of the Free Spirit" turning their
liberty into a cloak of licentiousness. If so,
the world will soon whistle back the
disciplinarian with his traditions of the
elders; prophesying will once more be
suppressed and discredited, and a new
crystallising process will begin. But before
that time comes some changes may possibly
take place in the external proportions of
Christian orthodoxy. The appearance of a
vigorous body of faith, standing firmly on its
own feet, may even have the effect of
relegating to the sphere of pious opinion
some tenets which have hitherto "seemed to
be pillars."

For these periodical returns to the "fresh
springs" of religion never leave the tradition
exactly where it was before. The German
movement of the fourteenth century made
the Reformation inevitable, and our own age
may be inaugurating a change no less
momentous, which will restore in the
twentieth century some of the features of
Apostolic Christianity.

LIGHT, LIFE AND LOVE

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ECKHART

GOD

GOD is nameless, for no man can either say
or understand aught about Him. If I say, God
is good, it is not true; nay more; I am good,
God is not good. I may even say, I am better
than God; for whatever is good, may become
better, and whatever may become better,
may become best. Now God is not good, for
He cannot become better. And if He cannot
become better, He cannot become best, for
these three things, good, better, and best,
are far from God, since He is above all. If I
also say, God is wise, it is not true; I am
wiser than He. If I also say, God is a Being,
it is not true; He is transcendent Being and
superessential Nothingness. Concerning this
St Augustine says: the best thing that man
can say about God is to be able to be silent
about Him, from the wisdom of his inner
judgement. Therefore be silent and prate not
about God, for whenever thou dost prate
about God, thou liest, and committest sin. If
thou wilt be without sin, prate not about
God. Thou canst understand nought about
God, for He is above all understanding. A
master saith: If I had a God whom I could
understand, I would never hold Him to be
God. (318) [xxxviil

God is not only a Father of all good things,
as being their First Cause and Creator, but
He is also their Mother, since He remains
with the creatures which have from Him their
being and existence, and maintains them
continually in their being. If God did not
abide with and in the creatures, they must
necessarily have fallen back, so soon as they
were created, into the nothingness out of
which they were created. (610)

REST ONLY IN GOD

IF I had everything that I could desire, and
my finger ached, I should not have
everything, for I should have a pain in my
finger, and so long as that remained, I
should not enjoy full comfort. Bread is
comfortable for men, when they are hungry;
but when they are thirsty, they find no more
comfort in bread than in a stone. So it is with
clothes, they are welcome to men, when they
are cold; but when they are too hot, clothes
give them no comfort. And so it is with all
the creatures. The comfort which they
promise is only on the surface, like froth, and
it always carries with it a want. But God's
comfort is clear and has nothing wanting: it
is full and complete, and God is constrained
to give it thee, for He cannot cease till He
have given thee Himself. (300)

It is only in God that are collected and united
all the perfections, which in the creatures are

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sundered and divided. (324)

Yet all the fullness of the creatures can as
little express God, as a drop of water can
express the sea. (173)

GOD IS ALWAYS READY

NO one ought to think that it is difficult to
come to Him, though it sounds difficult and is
really difficult at the beginning, and in
separating oneself from and dying to all
things. But when a man has once entered
upon it, no life is lighter or happier or more
desirable; for God is very zealous to be at all
times with man, and teaches him that He will
bring him to Himself if man will but follow.
Man never desires anything so earnestly as
God desires to bring a man to Himself, that
he may know Him. God is always ready, but
we are very unready; God is near to us, but
we are far from Him; God is within, but we
are without; God is at home, but we are
strangers. The prophet saith: God guideth
the redeemed through a narrow way into the
broad road, so that they come into the wide
and broad place; that is to say, into true
freedom of the spirit, when one has become
a spirit with God. May God help us to follow
this course, that He may bring us to Himself.
Amen. (223)

GRACE

THE masters say: That is young, which is
near its beginning. Intelligence is the
youngest faculty in man: the first thing to
break out from the soul is intelligence, the
next is will, the other faculties follow. Now
he saith: Young man, I say unto thee, arise.
The soul in itself is a simple work; what God
works in the simple light of the soul is more
beautiful and more delightful than all the
other works which He works in all creatures.
But foolish people take evil for good and
good for evil. But to him who rightly
understands, the one work which God works
in the soul is better and nobler and higher
than all the world. Through that light comes
grace. Grace never comes in the intelligence
or in the will. If it could come in the
intelligence or in the will, the intelligence
and the will would have to transcend
themselves. On this a master says: There is
something secret about it; and thereby he
means the spark of the soul, which alone can
apprehend God. The true union between God
and the soul takes place in the little spark,
which is called the spirit of the soul. Grace
unites not to any work. It is an indwelling
and a living together of the soul in God.
(255)

Every gift of God makes the soul ready to
receive a new gift, greater than itself. (15)

Yea, since God has never given any gift, in

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order that man might rest in the possession
of the gift, but gives every gift that He has
given in heaven and on earth, in order that
He might be able to give one gift, which is
Himself, so with this gift of grace, and with
all His gifts He will make us ready for the one
gift, which is Himself. (569)

No man is so boorish or stupid or awkward,
that he cannot, by God's grace, unite his will
wholly and entirely with God's will. And
nothing more is necessary than that he
should say with earnest longing: 0 Lord,
show me Thy dearest will, and strengthen me
to do it. And God does it, as sure as He lives,
and gives him grace in ever richer fulness, till
he comes to perfection, as He gave to the
woman at Jacob's well. Look you, the most
ignorant and the lowest of you all can obtain
this from God, before he leaves this church,
yea, before I finish this sermon, as sure as
God lives and I am a man. (187)

O almighty and merciful Creator and good
Lord, be merciful to me for my poor sins, and
help me that I may overcome all temptations
and shameful lusts, and may be able to avoid
utterly, in thought and deed, what Thou
forbiddest, and give me grace to do and to
hold all that Thou hast commanded. Help me
to believe, to hope, and to love, and in every
way to live as Thou wiliest, as much as Thou
wiliest, and what Thou wiliest. (415)

THE WILL

THEN is the will perfect, when it has gone
out of itself, and is formed in the will of
God. The more this is so, the more perfect
and true is the will, and in such a will thou
canst do all things. (553)

SURRENDER OF THE WILL

YOU should know, that that which God gives
to those men who seek to do His will with all
their might, is the best. Of this thou mayest
be as sure, as thou art sure that God lives,
that the very best must necessarily be, and
that in no other way could anything better
happen. Even if something else seems
better, it would not be so good for thee, for
God wills this and not another way, and this
way must be the best for thee. Whether it be
sickness or poverty or hunger or thirst, or
whatever it be, that God hangs over thee or
does not hang over thee--whatever God gives
or gives not, that is all what is best for thee;
whether it be devotion or inwardness, or the
lack of these which grieves thee--only set
thyself right in this, that thou desirest the
glory of God in all things, and then whatever
He does to thee, that is the best.

Now thou mayest perchance say: How can I
tell whether it is the will of God or not? If it
were not the will of God, it would not

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happen. Thou couldst have neither sickness
nor anything else unless God willed it. But
know that it is God's will that thou shouldst
have so much pleasure and satisfaction
therein, that thou shouldst feel no pain as
pain; thou shouldst take it from God as the
very best thing, for it must of necessity be
the very best thing for thee. Therefore I may
even wish for it and desire it, and nothing
would become me better than so to do.

If there were a man whom I were particularly
anxious to please, and if I knew for certain
that he liked me better in a grey cloak than
in any other, there is no doubt that however
good another cloak might be, I should be
fonder of the grey than of all the rest. And if
there were anyone whom I would gladly
please, I should do nothing else in word or
deed than what I knew that he liked.

Ah, now consider how your love shows itself!
If you loved God, of a surety nothing would
give you greater pleasure than what pleases
Him best, and that whereby His will may be
most fully done. And, however great thy pain
or hardship may be, if thou hast not as great
pleasure in it as in comfort or fulness, it is
wrong.

We say every day in prayer to our Father, Thy
will be done. And yet when His will is done,
we grumble at it, and find no pleasure in His
will. If our prayers were sincere, we should
certainly think His will, and what He does, to
be the best, and that the very best had
happened to us. (134)

Those who accept all that the Lord send, as
the very best, remain always in perfect
peace, for in them God's will has become
their will. This is incomparably better than for
our will to become God's will. For when thy
will becomes God's w i 1 1 --if thou art sick, thou
wishest not to be well contrary to God's will,
but thou wishest that it were God's will that
thou shouldest be well. And so in other
things. But when God's will becomes thy will-
-then thou art sick: in God's name; thy friend
dies: in God's name! (55)

SUFFERING

MEN who love God are so far from
complaining of their sufferings, that their
complaint and their suffering is rather
because the suffering which God's will has
assigned them is so small. All their
blessedness is to suffer by God's will, and
not to have suffered something, for this is
the loss of suffering. This is why I said,
Blessed are they who are willing to suffer for
righteousness, not, Blessed are they who
have suffered. (434)

All that a man bears for God's sake, God
makes light and sweet for him. (45)

If all was right with you, your sufferings
would no longer be suffering, but love and
comfort. (442)

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If God could have given to men anything
more noble than suffering, He would have
redeemed mankind with it: otherwise, you
must say that my Father was my enemy, if he
knew of anything nobler than suffering. (338)

True suffering is a mother of all the virtues.
(338)

SIN

DEADLY sin is a death of the soul. To die is
to lose life. But God is the life of the soul;
since then deadly sin separates us from God,
it is a death of the soul.

Deadly sin is also an unrest of the heart.
Everything can rest only in its proper place.
But the natural place of the soul is God; as
St Augustine says, Lord, thou hast made us
for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it
finds rest in Thee. But deadly sin separates
us from God; therefore it is an unrest of the
heart. Deadly sin is also a sickness of the
faculties, when a man can never stand up
alone for the weight of his sins, nor ever
resist falling into sin. Therefore deadly sin is
a sickness of the faculties. Deadly sin is also
a blindness of the sense, in that it suffers
not a man to know the shortness of the
pleasures of lust, nor the length of the
punishment in hell, nor the eternity of joys in
heaven. Deadly sin is also a death of all
graces; for as soon as a deadly sin takes
place, a man becomes bare of all graces.
(217)

Every creature must of necessity abide in
God; if we fall out of the hands of his mercy,
we fall into the hands of His justice. We
must ever abide in Him. What madness then
is it to wish not to be with Him, without
whom thou canst not be! (169)

CONTENTMENT

A GREAT teacher once told a story in his
preaching about a man who for eight years
besought God to show him a man who would
make known to him the way of truth. While
he was in this state of anxiety there came a
voice from God and spake to him: Go in front
of the church, and there shalt thou find a
man who will make known to thee the way of
truth. He went, and found a poor man whose
feet were chapped and full of dirt, and all his
clothes were hardly worth twopence-
halfpenny. He greeted this poor man and said
to him, God give thee a good morning. The
poor man answered, I never had a bad
morning. The other said, God give thee
happiness. How answerest thou that? The
poor man answered, I was never unhappy.
The first then said, God send thee
blessedness. How answerest thou that? I
was never unblessed, was the answer. Lastly
the questioner said, God give thee health!

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Now enlighten me, fori cannot understand it.
And the poor man replied, When thou saidst
to me, may God give thee a good morning, I
said I never had a bad morning. If I am
hungry, I praise God for it; if I am cold, I
praise God for it; if I am distressful and
despised, I praise God for it; and that is why
I never had a bad morning. When thou
askedst God to give me happiness, I
answered that I had never been unhappy; for
what God gives or ordains for me, whether it
be His love or suffering, sour or sweet, I take
it all from God as being the best, and that is
why I was never unhappy. Thou saidst
further, May God make thee blessed, and I
said, I was never unblessed, for I have given
up my will so entirely to God's will, that what
God wills, that I also will, and that is why I
was never unblessed, because I willed alone
God's will. Ah! dear fellow, replied the man;
but if God should will to throw thee into hell,
what wouldst thou say then? He replied,
Throw me into hell! Then I would resist Him.
But even if He threw me into hell, I should
still have two arms wherewith to embrace
Him. One arm is true humility, which I should
place under Him, and with the arm of love I
should embrace Him. And he concluded, I
would rather be in hell and possess God,
than in the kingdom of heaven without Him.
(623)

DETACHMENT

THE man who has submitted his will and
purposes entirely to God, carries God with
him in all his works and in all circumstances.
Therein can no man hinder him, for he neither
aims at nor enjoys anything else, save God.
God is united with Him in all his purposes
and designs. Even as no manifoldness can
dissipate God, so nothing can dissipate such
a man, or destroy his unity. Man, therefore,
should take God with him in all things; God
should be always present to his mind and will
and affections. The same disposition that
thou hast in church or in thy cell, thou
shouldst keep and maintain in a crowd, and
amid the unrest and manifoldness of the
world.

Some people pride themselves on their
detachment from mankind, and are glad to be
alone or in church; and therein lies their
peace. But he who is truly in the right state,
is so in all circumstances, and among all
persons; he who is not in a good state, it is
not right with him in all places and among all
persons. He who is as he should be has God
with him in truth, in all places and among all
persons, in the street as well as in the
church; and then no man can hinder him.
(547)

It is often much harder for a man to be alone
in a crowd than in the desert; and it is often
harder to leave a small thing than a great,
and to practise a small work than one which
people consider very great. (565)

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PRAYER

GOOD and earnest prayer is a golden ladder
which reaches up to heaven, and by which
man ascends to God.

The man who will pray aright should ask for
nothing except what may promote God's
honour and glory, his own profit and the
advantage of his neighbours. When we ask
for temporal things we should always add, if
it be God's will and if it be for my soul's
health. But when we pray for virtues, we
need add no qualification, for these are God's
own working. (359)

LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR

IT is a hard thing to practise this universal
love, and to love our neighbours as
ourselves, as our Lord commanded us. But if
you will understand it rightly, there is a
greater reward attached to this command,
than to any other. The commandment seems
hard, but the reward is precious indeed. (135)

LOVE

HE who has found this way of love, seeketh
no other. He who turns on this pivot is in
such wise a prisoner that his foot and hand
and mouth and eyes and heart, and all his
human faculties, belong to God. And,
therefore, thou canst overcome thy flesh in
no better way, so that it may not shame
thee, than by love. This is why it is written,
Love is as strong as death, as hard as hell.
Death separates the soul from the body, but
love separates all things from the soul. She
suffers nought to come near her, that is not
God nor God-like. Happy is he who is thus
imprisoned; the more thou art a prisoner, the
more wilt thou be freed. That we may be so
imprisoned, and so freed, may He help us,
Who Himself is Love. (30)

THE UNION WITH GOD

THE union of the soul with God is far more
inward than that of the soul and body. (566)

Now I might ask, how stands it with the soul
that is lost in God? Does the soul find herself
or not? To this will I answer as it appears to
me, that the soul finds herself in the point,
where every rational being understands itself
with itself. Although it sinks and sinks in the
eternity of the Divine Essence, yet it can
never reach the ground. Therefore God has
left a little point wherein the soul turns back
upon itself and finds itself, and knows itself

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to be a creature. (387)

God alone must work in thee without
hindrance, that He may bring to perfection
His likeness in thee. So thou mayest
understand with Him, and love with Him. This
is the essence of perfection. (471)

THE LAST JUDGMENT

PEOPLE say of the last day, that God shall
give judgment. This is true. But it is not true
as people imagine. Every man pronounces his
own sentence; as he shows himself here in
his essence, so will he remain everlastingly.
(471)

PRECEPT AND PRACTICE

BETTER one life-master than a thousand
reading-masters {wger wre ein lebemeister
denne tzsent lesemeister). If I sought a
master in the scriptures, I should seek him in
Paris and in the high schools of high learning.
But if I wished to ask questions about the
perfect life, that he could not tell me. Where
then must I go? Nowhere at all save to an
utterly simple nature; he could answer my
question. (599)

RELICS

MY people, why seek ye after dead bones?
Why seek ye not after living holiness, which
might give you everlasting life? The dead can
neither give nor take away. (599)

SAYINGS OF ECKHART

MASTER ECKHART saith: He who is always
alone, he is worthy of God; and he who is
always at home, to him is God present; and
be who abides always in a present now, in
him doth God beget His Son without ceasing.
(600)

Master Eckhart saith: I will never pray to God
to give Himself to me: I will pray Him to
make me purer. If I were purer, God must
give Himself to me, of His own nature, and
sink into me. (601)

Master Eckhart was asked, what were the
greatest goods, that God had done to him.
He said, there are three. The first is, that the
lusts and desires of the flesh have been
taken away from me. The second is, that the
Divine Light shines and gives me light in all
my doings. The third is, that I am daily

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renewed in virtue, grace and holiness. (602)

TAULER
OUR AIM

THINK, and think earnestly, how great, how
unutterable will be the joy and blessedness,
the glory and honour of those who shall see
clearly and without veil the gladsome and
beauteous face of God, how they will enjoy
the best and highest good, which is God
Himself. For in Him is included all pleasure,
might, joy, and all beauty, so that the
blessed in God will possess everything that is
good and desirable, with everlasting joy and
security, without fear lest they should ever
be parted from Him. (138)J\xxxyjiil

CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL

FROM the time when the first man gave a
ready ear to the words of the enemy,
mankind have been deaf, so that none of us
can hear or understand the loving utterances
of the eternal Word. Something has
happened to the ears of man, which has
stopped up his ears, so that he cannot hear
the loving Word; and he has also been so
blinded, that he has become stupid, and does
not know himself. If he wished to speak of
his own inner life, he could not do it; he
knows not where he is, nor what is his state.
(91)

How can it be that the noble reason, the
inner eye, is so blinded that it cannot see the
true light? This great shame has come about,
because a thick coarse skin and a thick fur
has been drawn over him, even the love and
the opinion of the creatures, whether it be
the man himself or something that belongs
to him; hence man has become blind and
deaf, in whatever position he may be, worldly
or spiritual. Yes, that is his guilt, that many
a thick skin is drawn over him, as thick as an
ox's forehead, and it has so covered up his
inner man, that neither God nor himself can
get inside; it has grown into him. (92)

THE FALL

THROUGH two things man fell in Paradise--
through pride, and through inordinate
affection. Therefore we too must return by
two things, that nature may recover her
power: we must first sink our nature and
bring it down under God and under all men in
deep humility, against whom it had exalted
itself in pride. We must also manfully die to
all inordinate lusts. (1)

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LIFE A BATTLE

NOTHING in the world is so necessary for
man as to be constantly assailed; for in
fighting he learns to know himself. As grace
is necessary to a man, so also is fighting.
Virtue begins in fighting, and is developed in
fighting. In every state to which a man is
called, inward and outward, he must of
necessity be assailed. A high Master said: As
little as meat can remain without salt and
yet not become corrupt, so little can a man
remain without fighting. (104)

A man should in the first place act as when a
town is besieged, and it is certain that the
besieging army is stronger than the town.
When the town is weakest, men take the
very greatest care to guard and defend the
town; if they neglected to do so, they would
lose the town, and with it their lives and
properties. So should every man do: he
should be most careful to find out in what
things the evil spirit most often besets him--
that is, on what side the man is weakest,
and to what kind of errors and failings he is
most prone, and should manfully defend
himself at those points.

Next, turn thyself earnestly away from sin;
for I tell you of a truth, by whatever
temptation a man is assailed, if he turns not
from it heartily, but stands in it vacillating,
he has no wholehearted desire to leave his
sins by God's will, and without doubt the evil
spirit is close upon him, who may make him
fall into endless perdition.

Know of a truth, that if thou wouldst truly
overcome the evil spirit, this can only be
done by a complete manful turning away from
sin. Say then with all thy heart: Oh,
everlasting God, help me and give me Thy
Divine grace to be my help, for it is my
steadfast desire never again to commit any
deadly sin against Thy Divine will and Thine
honour. So with thy good will and intention
thou entirely overcomest the evil spirit, so
that he must fly from thee ashamed.

Understand, however, that it is a miserable
and pitiable thing for a reasonable man to let
himself be overcome by the evil spirit, and in
consequence of his attacks to fall voluntarily
into grievous and deadly sin, whereby man
loses the grace of God. A reasonable man,
who allows himself voluntarily to be
overcome by the evil spirit, is like a well-
armed man who voluntarily lets a fly bite him
to death. For man has many great and strong
weapons, wherewith he may well and
manfully withstand the evil spirit--the holy
faith, the blessed sacrament, the holy word
of God, the model and example of all good
and holy men, the prayers of holy Church,
and other great supports against the power
of the evil spirit, whose power is much less
than that of a fly against a great bear. If a
man will manfully and boldly withstand the
evil spirit, the evil one can gain no advantage

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against his free will.

Turn, therefore, manfully and earnestly from
your sins, and watch diligently and earnestly;
for I tell you of a truth, that when you have
come to the next world, if you have not
withstood the evil spirit, and if you are found
there without repentance and sorrow, you will
be a mockery to all the devils and to
yourself, and you will be eternally punished
and tormented. And it will then be a greater
woe to you, that you have followed the evil
spirit, than all the external pains that you
must endure eternally for your sins.

Thirdly, a man should diligently attend to his
inner Ground, that there shall be nothing in it
save God alone, and His eternal glory. For
alas! there are many men, both lay and
clerical, who live falsely beneath a fair show,
and imagine that they can deceive the
everlasting God. No, in truth, thou deceivest
thyself, and losest the day of grace, and the
favour of God, and makest thyself guilty
towards God, in that He gives the evil spirits
power over thee, so that thou canst do no
good work. Therefore, watch while it is day,
that the hour of darkness and God's disfavour
may not overtake thee, and take heed that in
thy inner ground God may dwell, and nought
besides. (75)

Even as each man in his baptism is placed
under the charge of a special angel, who is
with him always and never leaves him, and
protects him waking and sleeping in all his
ways and in all his works, so every man has a
special devil, who continually opposes him
and exercises him without ceasing. But if the
man were wise and diligent, the opposition of
the devil and his exercises would be much
more profitable to him than the aid of the
good angel; for if there were no struggle,
there could be no victory. (139)

SIN

WHEN a man has had the fair net of his soul
torn by sin, he must patch and mend it by a
humble, repentant return to the grace and
mercy of God. He must act like one who
wishes to make a crooked stick straight: he
bends the stick further back than it ought to
go, and by being thus bent back it becomes
straight again. So must a man do to his own
nature. He must bend himself under all
things which belong to God, and break
himself right off, inwardly and outwardly,
from all things which are not God.

Every deadly sin causes the precious blood of
Christ to be shed afresh. Jesus Christ is
spiritually crucified many times every day.
(75)

FISHING FOR SOULS

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THE fisherman throws his hook, that he may
catch the fish; but the fish itself takes the
hook. When the fish takes the hook, the
fisherman is sure of the fish, and draws it to
him. Even so, God has thrown His hook and
His net into all the world, before our feet,
before our eyes, before our minds, and He
would gladly draw us securely to Himself by
means of all His creatures. By pleasurable
things He draws us on; by painful things He
drives us on. He who will not be drawn, is in
fault; for he has not taken God's hook, nor
will he be caught in God's net. If he came
therein, beyond doubt he would be caught by
God and would be drawn by God. It is not
God's fault if we will not be drawn; we should
grasp the hand held out to us. If a man were
in a deep pool, and one tried to help him and
pull him out, would he not gladly grasp his
hand and allow himself to be pulled out? (42)

Where two things are so related to each
other, that one may receive something for
the other, there must be something in
common between them. If they had nothing
in common, there must be a middle term
between them, which has something in
common both with the higher, from which it
may receive, and with the lower, to which it
may impart. Now God hath created all things,
and especially mankind, immediately for
Himself. He created man for His pleasure. But
by sin, human nature was so far estranged
from God, that it was impossible for a man to
attain to that, for which he was made. Now
Aristotle says that God and Nature are not
unprofitable workers--that is, what they work
at, they carry to its end. Now God created
man that He might have pleasure in him. If
then God's work in creating mankind was not
to be unprofitable, when they were so far
estranged from God by sin, that they could
not receive that by which they might return
and attain the enjoyment of eternal
happiness, a Mediator was necessary
between us and God, one who has something
in common with us and our natures, and also
shares in the nature of God. In order that on
the one side, He might in Himself destroy our
sickness, which was a cause of all our sins,
and also destroy all our sins, to which our
weakness has brought us; and on the other
side that He might include in Himself all the
treasure of grace and of God's honour, that
He might be able to give us grace richly, and
forgiveness of our sins, and eternal glory
hereafter, this could only be, if the Son of
God became man. (90)

Yea, the highest God and Lord of all lords,
the Son of God, in His deep love felt pity for
us poor, sinful men, condemned to the
flames of hell. Though He was in the form of
God, He thought it not robbery (as St Paul
says) to be equal with God, and He
annihilated Himself, and took upon Him the
form of a servant, and was made like any
other man, being found in fashion as a man.
He humbled Himself, and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross.
(117)

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GRACE

ALL works which men and all creatures can
ever work even to the end of the world,
without the grace of God--all of them
together, however great they may be, are an
absolute nothing, as compared with the
smallest work which God has worked in men
by His grace. As much as God is better than
all His creatures, so much better are His
works than all the works, or wisdom, or
designs, which all men could devise. Even the
smallest drop of grace is better than all
earthly riches that are beneath the sun. Yea,
a drop of grace is more noble than all angels
and all souls, and all the natural things that
God has made. And yet grace is given more
richly by God to the soul than any earthly
gift. It is given more richly than brooks of
water, than the breath of the air, than the
brightness of the sun; for spiritual things are
far finer and nobler than earthly things. The
whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
give grace to the soul, and flow immediately
into it; even the highest angel, in spite of his
great nobility, cannot do this. Grace looses
us from the snares of many temptations; it
relieves us from the heavy burden of worldly
cares, and carries the spirit up to heaven, the
land of spirits. It kills the worm of
conscience, which makes sins alive. Grace is
a very powerful thing. The man, to whom
cometh but a little drop of the light of grace,
to him all that is not God becomes as bitter
as gall upon the tongue. (86)

Grace makes, contrary to nature, all sorrows
sweet, and brings it about that a man no
longer feels any relish for things which
formerly gave him great pleasure and delight.
On the other hand, what formerly disgusted
him, now delights him and is the desire of his
heart--for instance, weakness, sorrow,
inwardness, humility, self-abandonment, and
detachment from all the creatures. All this is
in the highest degree dear to him, when this
visitation of the Holy Ghost, grace, has in
truth come to him. Then the sick man, that is
to say the external man, with all his faculties
is plunged completely into the pool of water,
even as the sick man who had been for
thirty-eight years by the pool at Jerusalem,
and there washes himself thoroughly in the
exalted, noble, precious blood of Christ
Jesus. For grace in manifold ways bathes the
soul in the wounds and blood of the holy
Lamb, Jesus Christ. (22)

PRAYER

THE essence of prayer is the ascent of the
mind to God, as holy teachers tell us.
Therefore every good man, when he wishes
to pray, ought to collect his outer senses into
himself, and look into his mind, to see
whether it be really turned to God. He who
wishes that his prayers may be truly heard,
must keep himself turned away from all
temporal and external things, and all that is

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not Divine, whether it be friend or joy {Freund
oder Freude), and all vanities, whether they
be clothes or ornaments, and from everything
of which God is not the true beginning and
ending, and from everything that does not
belong to Him. He must cut off his words and
his conduct, his manners and his demeanour,
from all irregularity, inward or outward.
Dream not that that can be a true prayer,
when a man only babbles outwardly with his
mouth, and reads many psalms, gabbling
them rapidly and hastily, while his mind
wanders this way and that, backwards and
forwards. Much rather must the true prayer
be, as St Peter tells us, "one-
minded" — that is, the mind must
cleave to God alone, and a man must look
with the face of his soul turned directly
towards God, with a gentle, willing
dependence on Him. (80)

If thy prayer has these conditions, thou
mayst with true humility fall at the feet of
God, and pray for the gentle succour of God;
thou mayest knock at His fatherly heart, and
ask for bread— that is, for love. If a man had
all the food in the world, and had not bread,
his food would be neither eatable, nor
pleasant, nor useful. So it is with all things,
without the Love of God. Knock also at the
door through which we must go— namely,
Christ Jesus. At this door, the praying man
must knock for three ends, if he wishes to be
really admitted. First he must knock devoutly,
at the broken heart and the open side, and
enter in with all devotion, and in recognition
of his unfathomable poverty and nothingness,
as poor Lazarus did at the rich man's gate,
and ask for crumbs of His grace. Then again,
he should knock at the door of the holy open
wounds of His holy hands, and pray for true
Divine knowledge, that it may enlighten him
and exalt him. Finally, knock at the door of
His holy feet, and pray for true Divine love,
which may unite thee with Him, and immerse
and cover thee in Him. (57)

MEDITATIONS ON THE SEVEN
WORDS FROM THE CROSS

[From a devotional treatise on the Passion of
Christ, published in a Latin translation, by
Surius, in 1548, and wrongly ascribed by him
to Tauler. The author was an unknown
German of the fourteenth century.]

THE FIRST WORD

NOW, O my soul, and all ye who have been
redeemed by the precious blood of Christ,
come, and let us go with inward compassion
and fervent devotion to the blessed palm-
tree of the Cross, which is laden with the
fairest fruit. Let us pass like the bee from
flower to flower, for all are full of honey. Let

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us consider and ponder with the greatest care
the sacred words of Christ, which He spoke
upon the Cross; for everything that comes
From this blessed Tree is wholesome and
good. In the Cross of our Lord and Saviour
are centred all our salvation, all our health,
all our life, all our glory; and, "if we suffer
with Him," saith the Apostle, "we shall also
reign with Him." That we may not be found
ungrateful for these inestimable benefits, let
us call upon heaven and earth, and all that in
them is, to join us in praising and blessing
and giving thanks to God. Let us invite them
to come and look upon this wondrous sight,
and say: "Magnify the Lord with me, for He
hath done marvellous things. O praise and
bless the Lord with me, for great is His mercy
toward us." Come up with me, I pray you, ye
angelic spirits, to Mount Calvary, and see
your King Solomon on His throne, wearing the
diadem wherewith His mother has crowned
Him. Let us weep in the presence of the Lord
who made us, the Lord our God. O all
mankind, and all ye who are members of
Christ, behold your Redeemer as He hangs on
high; behold and weep. See if any sorrow is
like unto His sorrow. Acknowledge the
heinousness of your sins, which needed such
satisfaction. Go to every part of His body;
you will find only wounds and blood. Cry to
Him with lamentations and say, "O Jesus, our
redemption, our love, our desire, what mercy
has overcome Thee, that Thou shouldest bear
our sins, and endure a cruel death, to rescue
us from everlasting death?" And Thou, O God,
the almighty Father of heaven, look down
from Thy sanctuary upon Thine innocent Son
Joseph, sold and given over unjustly to the
hands of bloody men, to suffer a shameful
death. See whether this be Thy Son's coat or
not. Of a truth an evil beast hath devoured
Him. The blood of our sins is sprinkled over
His garments, and all the coverings of His
good name are defiled by it. See how Thy
holy Child has been condemned with the
wicked, how Thy royal Son has been crowned
with thorns. Behold His innocent hands,
which have known no sin, dripping with
blood; behold His sacred feet, which have
never turned aside from the path of justice,
pierced through by a cruel nail; behold His
defenceless side smitten with a sharp spear;
behold His fair face, which the angels desire
to look upon, marred and shorn of all its
beauty; behold His blessed heart, which no
impure thought ever stained, weighed down
with inward sorrow. Behold, O loving Father,
Thy sweet Son, stretched out upon the harp
of the Cross, and harping blessings on Thee
with all His members. Wherefore, 0 my God,
I pray Thee to forgive me, for the sake of Thy
Son's Passion, all the sins that I have
committed in my members. O merciful Father,
look on Thy only-begotten Son, that Thou
mayst have compassion on Thy servant.
Whenever that red blood of Thy Son speaks
in Thy sight, do Thou wash me from every
stain of sin. WheneverThou beholdest the
wounds of this Thy Son, open to me the
bosom of Thy fatherly compassion. Behold, O
tender Father, how Thy obedient Son does
not cry, "Bind my hands and my feet, that I
may not rebel against Thee," but how of His
own will He extends His hands and feet, and
gladly allows them to be pierced with nails.

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Look down, I pray Thee, not on the brazen
serpent hanging on a pole for the salvation of
Israel, but on Thine only Son hanging on the
Cross for the salvation of all men. It is not
Moses who now stretches out his hand to
heaven, that the thunder and lightning and
the other plagues may cease, but it is Thy
beloved Son, who lovingly stretches out His
bleeding arms to Thee, that Thy wrath may
depart from the human race. Aaron and Hur
are not now holding up the hands of Moses
that he may pray more unweariedly for Israel;
but hard and cruel nails have fastened the
hands of Thy only Son to the Cross, that He
may wait with long-suffering for our
repentance, and receive us back into His
grace, and that He may not turn away in
wrath from our prayers. This is that faithful
David, who now strings tight the harp-strings
of His body, and makes sweet melody before
Thee, singing to Thee the sweetest song that
has been ever sung to Thee: "Father forgive
them, for they know not what they do." This
is that High Priest, who by His own blood has
entered into the Holy of Holies, to offer
Himself as a peace-offering for the sins of
the whole world. This is that innocent Lamb,
who has washed us in His own precious
blood, who, Himself without spot of sin, has
taken away the sins of the world. Therefore
from the storehouse of His Passion I borrow
the price of my debt, and I count out before
Thee all its merits, to pay what I owe Thee.
For He has done all in my nature, and for my
sake. O merciful Father, if Thou weighest all
my sins on one side of the balance, and in
the other scale the Passion of Thy Son, the
last will outweigh the first. For what sin can
be so great, that the innocent blood of Thy
Son has not washed it out? What pride, or
disobedience, or lust, is so unchecked or so
rebellious, that such lowliness, obedience,
and poverty cannot abolish it? O merciful
Father, accept the deeds of Thy beloved Son,
and forgive the errors of Thy wicked servant.
For the innocent blood of our brother Abel
crieth to Thee from the Cross, not for
vengeance, but for grace and mercy, saying,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do."

THE SECOND WORD

NOW the thieves who were crucified with
Jesus reviled Him. But after a while, the one
who hung on the right side of Christ, when he
saw His great patience and long-suffering,
wherewith He so lovingly prayed to His Father
for those who cast reproaches upon Him and
cruelly tortured Him, became entirely
changed, and began to be moved with very
great sorrow and repentance for his sins. And
he showed this outwardly, when he rebuked
his fellow-thief, who continued to revile
Christ, saying: "Dost not thou fear God,
seeing thou art in the same condemnation?"
"Although" (he would say) "thou art so
obstinate as not to fear men, and thinkest
nought of thy bodily pain, yet surely thou
must fear God, in the last moments of thy
life--God, who hath power to destroy both thy

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body and soul in hell. And though we suffer
the same punishment with Him, our deserts
are very different. We, indeed, suffer justly,
for we receive the due reward of our deeds,
but this man hath done nothing amiss." He,
who but lately was a blasphemer, is now a
confessor and preacher, he distinguishes
good from evil, blaming the sinner, and
excusing the innocent: the unbelieving thief
has become the confessor of almighty God. 0
good Jesus, this sudden change is wrought by
Thy right hand, at which he hung. Thy right
hand touched him inwardly, and forthwith he
is changed into another man. O Lord, in this
Thou hast declared Thy patience, out of a
stone Thou hast raised up a child unto
Abraham. Verily, the penitent thief received
the light of faith solely from that bright light
on the candlestick of the Cross, which shone
there in the darkness and scattered the
shades of night. But what does this signify,
save that our Lord Jesus, out of the
greatness of His goodness, looked upon him
with the eyes of His mercy, although He
found no merit in him, except what it pleased
Him out of His goodness to bestow? For as
God gives to His elect, out of His goodness
alone, what no one has a right to demand, so
out of His justice He gives to the wicked
what they deserve. For this cause David
says: "He saved me because He desired me."
And this is why the thief, before the Lord
touched his heart with the beams of His
grace and love, joined the other thief in
reviling Christ, thus showing first what his
own character was, and afterwards what was
wrought in him by grace. At first he acted like
the other, being, like him, a child of wrath;
but when the precious blood of Christ was
shed as the price of our redemption and paid
to the Father for our debt, then the thief
asked God to give him an alms for his good,
and at once received it. For how can one alms
diminish that inexhaustible treasure? How
could our tender Lord, whose property is
always to have mercy, have refused his
request? Indeed He gave him more than he
asked. Yet how could the thief escape the
glow of the fire which was burning so near
him? Truly this was the fire, which the Father
had sent down from heaven to earth, which
had long smouldered, but now, kindled anew,
and fed by the wood of the Cross, and
sprinkled with the oil of mercy, and fanned,
as it were, by the reproaches and
blasphemies of the Jews, sent up its flames
to heaven, by which that thief was quite
kindled and set on fire, and his love became
as strong as death, so that he said: "I indeed
suffer no grievous penalty, for it is less than
I deserve; but that this innocent One, who
has done no wrong, should be so tortured,
contrary to justice and righteousness, this,
truly, adds grievous sorrow to my sorrow." O
splendid faith of this thief! He contemned all
the punishment that might be inflicted on
him: he feared not the rage of the people,
who were barking like mad dogs against
Jesus: he cared not for the chief priests: he
feared not the executioners with their
weapons and instruments of torture; but in
the presence of them all, with a fearless
heart he confessed that Christ was the true
Son of God, and Lord of the whole world: and
at the same time he confounded the Jews by

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confessing that He had done nothing amiss,
and therefore that they had crucified Him
unjustly. O wondrous faith! O mighty
constancy! O amazing love of this poor thief,
love that cast out all fear! He was indeed
well drunken with that new wine which in the
wine-press of the Cross had been pressed out
of that sweet cluster, Jesus Christ, and
therefore he confessed Christ without shame
before all the people. At the very beginning
of the Passion, the apostles and disciples
had forsaken Christ and fled; even St Peter,
frightened by the voice of one maidservant,
had denied Christ. But this poor thief did not
forsake Him even in death, but confessed
Him to be the Lord of heaven in the presence
of all those armed men. Who can do justice
to the merits of this man? Who taught him
so quickly that faith of his, and his clear
knowledge of all the virtues, save the very
Wisdom of the Father, Jesus Christ, who
hung near him on the Cross? Him whom the
Jews could not or would not know, in spite of
the promises made to the patriarchs, the
fulfilment of prophecies, the teaching of the
Scriptures, and the interpretation of
allegories, this poor thief learned to know by
repentance. He confessed Christ to be the
Son of God, though he saw Him full of
misery, want, and torment, and dying from
natural weakness. He confessed Him at a
time when the apostles, who had seen His
mighty works, denied Him. The nails were
holding his hands and feet fixed to the cross;
he had nothing free about him, except his
heart and his tongue; yet he gave to God all
that he could give to Him, and, in the words
of Scripture, "with his heart he believed unto
righteousness, and with his tongue he made
confession of Christ unto salvation." O
infinite and unsearchable mercy of God! For
what manner of man was he when he was
sent to the cross, and what when he left it?
(Not that it was his own cross, that wrought
this change, but the power of Christ
crucified.) He came to the cross stained with
the blood of his fellow-man; he was taken
down from it cleansed by the blood of Christ.
He came to the cross still savage and full of
rage, and while he was upon it he became so
meek and pitiful that he lamented for the
sufferings of another more than for his own.
One member only was left to him, and at the
eleventh hour he came to work in God's
vineyard, and yet so eagerly did he labour
that he was the first to finish his work and
receive his reward. Indeed he behaved like a
just man; for he first accused himself and
confessed his sins, saying, "and we, indeed,
justly, for we receive the due reward of our
deeds." Secondly, he excused Christ, and
confessed that He was the Just One when he
said "but this Man hath done nothing amiss."
Thirdly, he showed brotherly love, for he said,
"dost not thou fear God?" Fourthly, with all
his members, or at least with all that he
could offer, and with loving eyes and a
devout heart and a humble spirit, he turned
himself to Christ and prayed earnestly, "Lord,
remember me when Thou comest into Thy
Kingdom." How great was the justice and
humility and resignation which he showed in
this prayer, for he asked only for a little
remembrance of himself, acknowledging that
he was not worthy to ask for anything great.

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Nor did he pray for the safety of his body, for
he gladly desired to die for his sins. It was
more pleasant for him to die with Christ than
to live any longer. Nor did he pray that our
Lord would deliver him from the pains of hell,
or of purgatory, nor did he ask for the
kingdom of heaven; but he resigned himself
entirely to the will of God, and offered
himself altogether to Christ, to do what He
would with him. In his humility he prayed for
nothing except for grace and mercy, for which
David also prayed when he said, "Deal with
Thy servant according to Thy mercy." And
therefore, because he had prayed humbly and
wisely, the Eternal Wisdom, Who reads the
hearts of all who pray, heard his prayer, and,
opening wide the rich storehouse of His
grace, bestowed upon him much more than
he had dared to ask. O marvellous goodness
of God! How plainly dost Thou declare in this,
that Thou desirest not the death of a sinner,
but rather that he should be converted and
live. Now Thou hast manifested and fulfilled
what Thou didst promise aforetime by Thy
prophet: "When the wicked man shall mourn
for his sins, I will remember his iniquity no
more." Thou didst not impose upon him many
years of severe penance, nor many sufferings
in purgatory for the expiation of his sins; but
just as if Thou hadst quite forgotten his
crimes, and couldst see nothing in him but
virtue, Thou didst say: "This day shalt thou
be with Me in paradise." O immeasurable
compassion of God! Our tender Lord forgot all
the countless crimes which that poor thief
had done, and forgave him when he
repented, and gave so great and splendid a
reward to the good which there was in him,
small indeed though it was. Our loving God is
very rich; He needs not our gifts; but He
seeks for a heart which turns to Him with
lowliness and resignation, such a heart as He
found in this poor thief. For He says Himself:
"turn to Me, and I will turn to you." And so
when this thief so courageously and
effectively turned to God, his prayer was at
once not only accepted but answered. For our
Lord did not reject his prayer, or say to him:
"See how I hang here in torment, and I
behold before My eyes My mother in sore
affliction, and I have not yet spoken one
word to her, so that to hear thee now would
not be just." No, our Lord said nothing of this
kind to the thief. Rather, He heard his prayer
at once, and made answer in that sweet
word, "Amen, I say unto thee, this day shalt
thou be with Me in paradise." O tender
goodness, O marvellous mercy of God! O
great wisdom of the thief! He saw that the
treasures of Christ were wide open, and were
being scattered abroad. Who then should
forbid him to take as much as would pay
what he owed to his Lord? And O the
accursed hardness of the impenitent thief,
whom neither the rebuke of his associate, nor
the patience of Christ, nor the many signs of
love and mercy that shone forth in Christ,
could melt or convert! He saw that alms were
plentiful at the rich man's gate, that more
was given than was asked for, and yet he
was too proud and obstinate to ask. He saw
that life and the kingdom of heaven were
being granted, and yet he would not bend his
heart to wish for them: therefore he shall not
have them. He loved better revilings and

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curses, and they shall come unto him, and
that for all eternity. These new first-fruits of
the grape, which our Lord gathered on the
wood of the Cross from our barren soil, by
much sweat of His brow and much watering
with His own precious blood, He sent with
great joy as a precious gift to His heavenly
Father, by His celestial messengers the holy
angels. But if there is joy among the angels
of God over one sinner that repenteth, how
must they rejoice and exult at the salvation
of this thief, of whom they had almost
despaired? We can picture to ourselves with
what joy the Father of heaven received these
first-fruits of the harvest of His Son's
Passion. But Christ Himself, though He felt
some joy at the thief's conversion, was still
more afflicted thereby, for by His wisdom He
foresaw that this thief would be the cause of
perdition to many, who would resolve to pass
their whole lives in sin, hoping to obtain
pardon and grace at the moment of death.
Truly a most foolish hope, for nowhere in the
Scriptures do we read that it has so
happened to any man. In truth, they who
seek after God only when they must, will not,
it is to be feared, find Him near them in their
time of need. In the meantime, none can
trust too much in God, and no one has ever
been forsaken by Him, who has turned to Him
with his whole heart, and leant upon Him
with loving confidence.

THE THIRD WORD

THERE stood also by the Cross of Jesus His
most holy and ever-virgin mother Mary; not in
order that His sufferings might thereby be
lessened, but that they might be greatly
augmented. For if any creature could have
given consolation to the Lord while He hung
on the Cross, no one could have done it so
fitly as His blessed mother. But since it was
God's will that Christ should die the most
bitter of deaths, and end His Passion without
any comfort or relief, but with true
resignation, His mother's presence brought
Him no consolation, but rather added to His
sufferings, for her sufferings were thereby
added to His, and this added yet more to His
affliction. Who then, O good Jesus can
discover by meditation how great was Thy
inward grief, for Thou knowest the hearts of
all, when Thou sawest all the body of Thy
holy mother tortured by inward compassion,
even as Thou wast tortured on the Cross, and
her tender heart and maternal breast pierced
with the sword of sharp sorrow, her face pale
as death, telling the anguish of her soul, and
almost dead, yet unable to die. When Thou
beheldest her hot tears, flowing down
abundantly like sweet rivers upon her
gracious cheeks, and overall her face, all
witnesses to Thee that she shared in Thy
sorrow and love; when Thou heardest her sad
laments, forced from her by the weight of her
affliction; when Thou sawest that same
tender mother, melted away with the heat of
love, her strength quite failing her, worn out
and exhausted by the pains of Thy Passion,
which wasted her away; all this, truly, was a

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new affliction to Thee on the Cross; it was
itself a new Cross. For Thou alone, by the
spear of ,Thy pity, didst explore the weight
and grievousness of her woes, which to men
are beyond comprehension. All this, indeed,
greatly increased the pain of Thy Passion,
because Thou wast crucified not only in Thy
own body, but in Thy mother's heart; for her
Cross was Thy Cross, and Thine was hers. O
how bitter was Thy Passion, sweet Jesus!
Great indeed was Thy outward suffering, but
far more grievous was Thy inward suffering,
which Thy heart experienced at Thy mother's
anguish. It was now, beyond doubt, that the
sword of sorrow pierced her through, for the
queen of martyrs was terribly and mortally
wounded in that part which is impassible —
that is, the soul; she bore the death of the
Cross in that part which could not die,
suffering all the more her grievous inward
death, as outward death departed further
from her. Who, O most loving mother, can
recount or conceive in his mind the
immeasurable sorrows of thy soul, or thine
inward woes? Him whom thou didst bring
forth without pain, as a blessed mother free
from the curse of our first mother Eve, who
instead of the pains of labour wast filled with
joy of spirit, and who for thy refreshment
didst listen to the sweet songs of the angels
as they praised thy Son, thou hast now seen
slain before thine eyes with the greatest
cruelty and tyranny. How manifold was that
sorrow of thine, which thou wast permitted to
escape at His birth, when thou sawest thy
blessed and only Son hanging in such
torment on the Cross, in the presence of a
cruel and furious crowd, who showered upon
Him all the insults and contumely and shame
that they could think of; when thou sawest
Him whom thou didst bear in thy pure womb
without feeling the burden, so barbarously
stretched on the Cross, and pierced with
nails; when thou sawest His sacred arms,
with which He had so many times lovingly
embraced thee, stretched out so that He
could not move them, and covered with red
blood, His adorable head pierced with sharp
thorns, and His whole body one streaming
wound, while thou wast not able to staunch
or anoint any of those wounds. What must
thy grief have been when thou sawest Him
whom thou hadst so often laid on thy virgin
bosom that He might rest, without anything
on which to lean His sacred head; and Him
whom thou hadst nourished with the milk of
thy holy breasts, now vexed with vinegar and
gall. O how thy maternal heart was
oppressed when thou beheldest with thy pure
eyes that fair face so piteously marred, so
that there was no beauty in it, and nothing
by which He could be distinguished. How did
the wave of affliction beat against and
overflow and overwhelm thy soul! Truly, if
even a devout man cannot without
unspeakable sorrow and pity revolve in his
mind the Passion of thy Son, what must have
been thy Cross, thy affliction, who wast His
mother and sawest it all with thine eyes? If
to many friends of God and to many who love
Him, thy Son's Passion is as grievous as if
they suffered it themselves, if by inward pity
they are crucified with thy Son, how terribly,
even unto death, must thou have been
crucified inwardly, when thou didst not only

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ponder and search into the outward and
inward pains of thy Son in thy devout heart,
but sawest them with thy bodily eyes? For
never did any mother love her child as thou
lovedst thy Son. And if St Paul, who loved so
much, could say, out of his ardent love and
deep pity for thy Son, "I am crucified with
Christ; and I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus," how much more wert thou
crucified with Him, and didst inwardly receive
all His wounds, being made, in a manner, an
image and likeness of thy crucified Son?

THE FOURTH WORD

ABOUT the ninth hour our Lord Jesus cried
with a loud voice, "My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me?" He cried with a loud
voice, that He might be easily heard by all,
and also that by this wondrous word He
might shake off from our souls the sleep of
sloth, and cause them to wonder and marvel
at the immeasurable goodness of God to us.
Therefore He saith, "My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me?" For the sake of vile
sinners, for evil and thankless servants, for
sinful and disobedient deceivers, Thou hast
forsaken Thy beloved Son and most obedient
Child. That Thy enemies, who are vessels of
wrath, might be changed into children of
adoption, Thou hast slain Thine own Son, and
given Him over to death like one guilty. "O
my God, why, I pray Thee, hast Thou
forsaken me?" For the very cause why men
ought to praise and give thanks to Thee, and
love Thee with an everlasting love; because
Thou hast delivered Thy dear Son to death for
their redemption, and sacrificed Him willingly,
for this reason they will find ground for
blasphemy and reproach against Thee,
saying, "He saith He is the Son of God. Let
God deliver Him now if He will have Him."
Why, O my God, hast Thou willed to spend so
precious a treasure for such vile and
counterfeit goods? Besides, this word may be
understood to have been spoken by Christ
against those who seek to diminish the glory
of His Passion, by saying that it was not
really so bitter and terrible, owing to the
great support and comfort which He drew
from His Godhead. Let those who speak and
think thus know that they renew His Passion
and crucify Him afresh. It was to prove the
error of such men that our Lord cried with a
loud voice, and said, "My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me?" It is as if He had
said these words to His own Divine nature,
with which He formed one Person--for the
Godhead of the Father and of the Son is all
one--wondering, Himself, at His own love,
which had so cast Him down and worn Him
out and humbled Him, and that He who
brings help to all mankind should have
forsaken Himself, and offered Himself to
suffer every kind of pain, impelled thereto by
conquering love alone. Again, we should not
be wrong, if we were to interpret this word
which Christ spoke out of the exceeding
bitterness of His sorrow in the following way-
-namely, that His spirit and inward man,
taking upon itself the severe judgment of

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God upon all sinners, and at the same time
discerning clearly and feeling and measuring
in Himself the intolerable weight of His
Passion, on this account cried out in a
sorrowful voice to His Father, and complained
tenderly to Him because He had been cast
into these dreadful torments; as if the
goodness of His Father had become so
embittered against the sins of men, that in
the ardour of His justice He had quite
forgotten the inseparable union between His
passible humanity and His impassible
Godhead, and therefore in the zealousness of
His justice had quite given up His passible
nature to the cruelty and malice of fierce
men, that they might waste it away and
destroy it. For this reason, therefore, He
said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?" This word has besides an
inward meaning, according to which Christ, in
His sensitive parts, complained to His Father
that He had been forsaken by Him. For as
many as contend for His honour, and endure
patiently the troubles of this world, our
merciful God so moderates and tempers their
crosses and afflictions by the inpouring of His
divine consolation, that by His sensible grace
He makes their crosses hardly felt; but He
left His own beloved Son quite without any
comfort, and so deprived Him of all
consolation and light, that He endured as
much in His human nature as had been
ordained by the Eternal Wisdom, according to
the strictness of justice, as much as was
needed to atone for so many sins. And
indeed our salvation was the more nobly and
perfectly achieved, in that it was done and
finished without any light at all, in absolute
resignation and abandonment. For a chief
cause of the Passion was to show clearly how
great was the injury and insult brought upon
His most high Godhead by the sins of the
human race. Now as the knowledge of Christ
was greater and more acute than that of all
other beings, in heaven or in earth, so much
the greater and heavier was His sorrow and
agony. Nay more— what is more wonderful
than anything— whatever afflictions have
been endured by all the saints, as members
of Christ, existed much more abundantly in
Christ their Head; and this I wish to be
understood according to the spirit and
reasonably. For all the saints have suffered
no more than flowed in upon them through
Christ, joined to them as His members, who
communicated to them His own afflictions.
For He took upon Himself the afflictions of all
the saints, out of His great love for His
members, and wondrous pity, and He
suffered far greater internal anguish than any
of the saints, nay, more even than the
blessed Virgin, His mother, felt her own sharp
sorrow and sickness of heart. For if an earthly
father loves his child so much, that in
fatherly pity he takes upon himself the
sorrows of his child, and grieves for them as
if he suffered them himself, what must have
been Christ's Cross and compassion for the
affliction of His members, and above all, of
those who suffered for His name's sake?
Truly He bore witness to His members, how
much He suffered from their afflictions, and
how great was His inward pity for their
sufferings, when He took all their debt upon
Himself, and abolished all the penalties

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which they had merited, so that they might
depart free. The same is most amply proved
by the words which He spoke to St Paul,
when He said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou Me?" For the persecution which Saul had
stirred up against the disciples, the members
of the Lord, was not less grievous to Him
than if He had suffered it Himself. Therefore
He says to His friends and members, "He who
touches you, touches the apple of Mine eye."
For is there anything suffered by the
members, which the Head does not suffer
with them, He whose nature is goodness, and
whose property is always to have mercy and
to forgive?

THE FIFTH WORD

OUR most tender Lord was so worn out and
parched by the extreme bitterness of His pain
and suffering, and by the great loss of blood,
that He cried, "I thirst." A little word, but full
of mysteries.

In the first place it may be understood
literally. For it is natural for those who are at
the point of death to feel thirst, and to
desire to drink. But how great was the drouth
felt by Him who is the fountain of living
water, but who was now worn out and
parched by the heat of His ardent love, when
he could truly say, "I am poured out like
water," and "My strength is dried up like a
potsherd." For not only did He shed all His
own blood, and pour out moisture by tears,
but the very marrow of His bones, and all His
heart's blood, were consumed foroursakes
by the heat and flame of love. Therefore He
said rightly, "I thirst."

But, secondly, the word may be understood
spiritually, as if Christ said to all men, "I
thirst for your salvation." Hence St Bernard
says: "Jesus cried, I thirst, not, I grieve. O
Lord, what dost Thou thirst for? For your
faith, your joy. I thirst because of the
torments of your souls, far more than for My
own bodily sufferings. Have pity on
yourselves, if not on Me." And again, "O good
Jesus, Thou wearest the crown of thorns;
Thou art silent about Thy Cross and wounds,
yet Thou criest out, I thirst. For what, then,
dost Thou thirst? Truly, for the redemption of
mankind only, and for the felicity of the
human race." This thirst of Christ was a
hundred times more keen and intense than
His natural thirst. And, besides, He had
another sort of thirst--that is to say, a thirst
to suffer more, and to prove to us still more
clearly His immeasurable love, as if He said
to man, "See how I am worn out and
exhausted for thy salvation. See how terrible
are the pains and anguish which I endure.
The fierce cruelty of man has almost brought
Me to nothing; the sinners of earth have
drunk out all My blood, and yet I thirst. Not
yet is My heart satisfied, nor My desire
accomplished, nor the fire of My love
quenched. For if it were possible for Me, and
according to My Father's will, that I should be
crucified again a thousand times for your

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salvation and conversion, or that I should
hang here, in all this pain and anguish, till
the day of judgment, I would gladly do it, to
prove to you the immeasurable love which I
bear you in My heart, and to soften your
stony hearts and rouse you to love Me in
return. This is why I hang here so thirsty by
the fountain of your hearts, that I may watch
the pious souls who come hitherto draw from
the deep well of My Passion. Therefore, the
maiden to whom I shall say, 'Give Me to drink
a little water out of the pitcher of thy
conscience'--the water of devotion, pity,
tears, and mutual love--and who shall let
down to Me her pitcher, and shall say, 'Drink,
my Lord; and for Thy camels also— that is,
Thy servants, who carry Thee about daily on
their bodies, and who by night and day are
held bound fast by Thy yoke, I will draw the
water of brotherly love'--that is the maiden
whom the Lord hath prepared for the Son of
My Lord, even the bride of the Word of God,
united to My humanity. And she shall be
counted worthy to enter, like a bride with her
bridegroom, into the chamber of eternal rest,
when the Bridegroom invites her, saying,
'Come, My blessed bride, inherit the Kingdom
of My Father. For I was thirsty, and thou
gavest Me drink.'"

Thirdly, we may apply this word to the
Father, as if Christ said to His Father:
"Father, I have declared Thy name to
mankind; I have finished the work which Thou
gavest Me to do; and in Thy service I have
spent My whole body as Thine instrument.
Behold, I am all worn out and exhausted; and
yet I still thirst to do and suffer more for
Thine honour. This is why I hang here,
extended to the furthest breadth of love, for
I long to be an everlasting sacrifice, a sweet
savour to Thee, and at the same time an
eternal atonement and salvation to
mankind." Thus, too, might this strong
Samson have said: "O Lord, Thou hast put
into the hand of Thy servant this very great
salvation and victory, and yet behold, I die of
thirst." As if He would say: Father, I have
accomplished Thy gracious will; I have
finished the work of man's salvation, as Thou
didst demand; and yet I still thirst; for the
sins by which Thou art offended are infinite.
And so I desire that the love and merits of
My Passion, by which Thou wilt be appeased,
may be infinite too. And as I now offer
myself as a peace-offering and a living
sacrifice for the salvation of all men, so
through Me may all men appease Thee, by
offering Me to Thee as a peace-offering to
Thine eternal glory, in memory of My Passion,
and to make good all their shortcomings." 0
how acceptable to the Father must this
desire of love have been! For what was this
thirst but a sweet and pleasant refreshment
to the Father, and at the same time the
blessed renovation of mankind? Or what
other language does this burning throat
speak to us, save that of Christ's burning
love, without measure and without limit, out
of which He did all His works? This truly is
the most noble sacrifice of our redemption,
this is that peace-offering which will be
offered even to the last day, by all good
men, to the Holy Ghost, to the highest
Father, in memory of the Son, to the eternal

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glory of the adorable Trinity, and to the fruit
of salvation for mankind. Here, certainly, is
the inexhaustible storehouse of our
reconciliation, which never fails, for it is
greater than all the debts of the world. This
is that immeasurable love, which is higher
than the heavens, for it has repaired the ruin
of the angels; deeper than hell, for it has
freed souls from hell; wider and broader than
the earth, for it is without end and
incomprehensible by any created
understanding. O how keen and intense was
this thirst of our Lord! For not only did He
then say once, "I thirst," but even now He
says in our hearts continually, "I thirst;
woman, give me to drink." So great, so
mighty, is that thirst, that He asks drink not
only from the children of Israel, but from the
Samaritans. To each one He complaineth of
His thirst. But for what dost Thou thirst, O
good Jesus? "My meat and drink," saith He,
"is that men should do My Father's will. Now
this is the will of My Father, even your
sanctification and salvation, that you may
sanctify your souls by walking in My precepts,
by doing works of repentance, by adorning
yourselves with all virtues, in order that, like
a bride adorned for her husband, you may be
worthy to be present at My supper in My
Father's kingdom, and to sleep with Me as My
elect bride, in the chamber of My Father's
heart." O how Christ longs to bring all men
thither! This is the meaning of His words:
"Where I am there shall also My servant be";
and again: "Father, I will that they may be
one even as We are one." O, how
incomprehensible is this thirst of Christ!
What toil and labour He endured for thirty
and three years, for the sake of it! For this
His very heart's blood was poured out. See
what our tender Lord says to His Father: "The
zeal of Thine house hath even eaten Me."
Truly, He would have submitted to be
crucified a thousand times, rather than allow
one soul to perish through any fault of His. 0
how this inward thirst tormented Him, when
He thought that He had done all that He
could, and even a hundredfold more than He
need have done, and yet that so few had
turned to Him, and been won by Him. His
whole body was now worn out; all His blood
was shed; nothing remained for Him to do;
and therefore He was constrained to confess,
"It is finished"; and yet by all His labours,
afflictions, and sufferings, He had brought no
richer harvest to the Father than this. Truly,
this was the most bitter of all His sorrows,
that after so hard a battle His victory had not
been more glorious, and that He returned a
conqueror to His Father with so few spoils.
Therefore, all those who do not refresh Him
by performing His will, and doing all that is
pleasing and honourable to Him, and
withstanding all that reason tells them to be
displeasing to Him, will one day hear Him
say, "I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink.
Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."

Fourthly, there is yet another inward meaning
of this word--namely, that Christ spoke it out
of the love which inwardly draws Him towards
all men, thus making known to us His ardent
love, and opening His own heart, as a
delightful couch, on which we may feed
pleasantly, and inviting us to it, saying, "I

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thirst for you." For as the liquid which we
drink is sent down pleasantly through the
throat into the body, and so passes into the
substance and nature of our body, so Christ
out of the ardent thirst of His love, takes
spiritual pleasure in drinking in all men into
Himself, swallowing them, as it were, and
incorporating them into Himself, and bringing
them into the secret chamber of His loving
heart. Therefore He says: "I, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all men unto Me"—
all men, that is, who allow themselves to be
drawn by Me, and submit to Me as obedient
instruments, suffering Me to do with them
according to My gracious will. But those who
resist Him quench not His thirst, but give Him
a bitter draught instead, even the deeds of
their own self-will. These, when our Lord
tasteth them, He straightway rejects.

THE SIXTH WORD

WHEN Christ had tasted the draught of
vinegar and gall, He spoke the sixth word: "It
is finished." Thereby He signified that by His
Passion had been fulfilled all the prophecies,
types, mysteries, scriptures, sacrifices, and
promises, which had been predicted and
written about Him. This is that true Son of
God, for whom the Father of heaven made
ready a supper in the kingdom of His eternal
blessedness; and He sent His servant— that
is the human nature of Christ, coming in the
form of a servant, to call them that were
bidden to the wedding. For Christ, when He
took human nature upon Him, was not only a
servant but a servant of servants, and served
all of us for thirty and three years with great
toil and suffering. Indeed, He spent His
whole life in bidding all men to His supper. It
was for this that He preached, and wrought
miracles, and travelled from place to place,
and proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven
was at hand, and that all should be prepared
for it. But they would not come. And when
the Father of the household heard this, He
said to His Servant: "Compel them to come
in, that My house may be filled." Then that
Servant thought within Himself: "How shall I
be able without violence to compel these
men to come, that rebellion may be avoided
and yet that their privilege and power of free
will may remain unimpaired? For if I compel
them to come by iron chains, and blows, and
whips, I shall have asses and not men." Then
He said to Himself: "I perceive that man is so
constituted as to be prone to love. Therefore
I will show him such love as shall pass all his
understanding, love than which no other love
can be greater. If man will observe this, he
will be so caught in its toils, that he will not
be able to escape its heat and flame, and
will be constrained to turn to God, and love
Him in return. For, turn where he will, he will
always be met by the immeasurable benefits,
the infinite goodness, and the wonderful love
of God; and at the same time he will feel
more and more compelled to return love for
love, till he will be no more able to resist it,
and will be gently constrained to follow.
When this was done, Jesus Christ, this

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faithful and wise Servant, said to His Lord
and Father, "It is finished. I have finished the
work which Thou gavest Me to do. What more
could I have done, and have not done it? I
have no member left that is not weary and
worn with toil and pain. My veins are dry, My
blood is shed; My marrow is spent, My throat
is hoarse with crying. Such love have I shown
to man, that his heart cannot be human,
cannot even be stony, or the heart of a brute
beast, but must be quite devilish and
desperate, if it be not moved by the thought
of these things."

Moreover, this word of our Lord Jesus is a
word of sorrow, not of joy. He spoke it not as
if He had now escaped from all His suffering.
No; when He said, "It is finished," He meant
all that had been ordained and decreed by
the eternal Truth for Him to suffer. Besides,
all the sufferings which had been inflicted
upon Him by degrees and singly, He now
endures together with immeasurable anguish.
Who can have such a heart of adamant as
not to be moved by such torment as this?
How short were the words which our Lord
Jesus spoke on the Cross, yet how full of
sacramental mysteries! Now were fulfilled the
words of Exodus: "And all things were
finished which belonged to the sacrifice of
the Lord."

Moreover by this word our Lord declared the
glorious victory of the Passion, and how the
old enemy, the jealous serpent, was
overcome and thrown down; for this was the
cause for which He suffered. For this He had
taken upon Himself the garment of human
nature, that He might vanquish and confound
the enemy, by the same weapons wherewith
the enemy boasted that he had conquered
man. This was the chief purpose of His
Passion, and now He confesses that it is
finished. O how wonderful are the mysteries,
and the victories, included in this little but
deep word: "It is finished!" All that the
eternal Wisdom had decreed, all that strict
justice had demanded for each man, all that
love had asked for, all the promises made to
the fathers, all the mysteries, types,
ceremonies in Scripture, all that was meet
and necessary for our redemption, all that
was needed to wipe out our debts, all that
must repair our negligences, all that was
glorious and loving for the exhibition of this
splendid love, all that we could desire, for
our spiritual instruction — in a word, all that
was good and fitting for the celebration of
the glorious triumph of our redemption, all is
included in that one word, "It is finished."
What, then, remains for Him, but to finish
and perfect His life in this glorious conflict;
and, because nothing remains for Him to do,
to commend His precious soul into His
Father's hands, seeing that He has fought
the good fight, and finished His course in all
holiness? It is meet, then, that He should
obtain the crown of glory which His heavenly
Father will give Him on the day of His
exaltation.

Lastly, by this word Christ offered up all His
toil, sorrow, and affliction for all the elect, as
the Apostle saith: "Who in the days of His
flesh offered up prayer and supplications with
strong crying and tears unto Him who was

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able to save Him from death, and was heard
in that He feared. For if the blood of bulls
and of goats and the ashes of a heifer,
sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the
purifying of the flesh, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God,
purge our conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?"

THE SEVENTH WORD

OUR Lord Jesus cried again with a loud voice,
and said, "Father, into Thy hands I commend
My Spirit." 0 all ye who love our Lord Jesus
Christ, come, I beseech you, and let us
watch, with all devotion and pity, His passing
away. Let us see what must have been His
sorrow and agony and torment, when His
glorious soul was now at last forced to pass
out of His worthy and most sacred body, in
which for thirty and three years it had rested
so sweetly, peacefully, joyfully, and holily,
even as two lovers on one bed. How hard was
it for them to be rent asunder, between
whom no disagreement had ever arisen, no
strife, or quarrel, or treachery. How
unspeakably grievous was that Cross, when
His sacred body was compelled to part with
so faithful a friend, so gentle an occupant, so
loving a teacher and master; and how great
was the sorrow with which His glorious and
pure soul was torn away from so faithful a
servant, which had ever served obediently,
never sparing any trouble, never shrinking
from cold or heat or hunger or thirst; always
enduring labour and sorrow in gentleness and
patience. O how great was this affliction! For,
as the philosopher says: "Of all terrible
things death is the most terrible, on account
of the natural and mutual affection, which is
very great, between soul and body." How
much greater must have been the anguish
and sorrow, when the most holy soul and
body of Christ were sundered, between which
there had always been such wonderful
harmony and love. Therefore, with inward pity
and anxious sorrow, let us meditate on this
sad parting; for the death of Christ is our life.

Let us meditate devoutly how His sacred
body, the instrument of our salvation, was
steeped in anguish, when all His members,
as if to bid a last farewell, were bowing
themselves down to die! Who can look
without remorse and sorrow and pity upon
the most gracious face of Christ, and behold
how it is changed into the pallor and likeness
of death; how tears still flow from His
dimmed eyes; how His sacred head is bent;
how all His members prove to us, by signs
and motions, the love which they can no
longer show by deeds. Let us pity Him, I pray
you, for He is our own flesh and blood, and it
is for our sins, not His own, that He is
shamefully slain. O ye who up till now have
passed by the Cross of Jesus with tepid or
cold hearts, and whom all these torments
and tears, and His blood shed like water,
have not been able to soften; now at last let
this loud voice, this terrible cry, rend and

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pierce your hearts through and through. Let
that voice which shook the heaven and the
earth and hell with fear, which rent the rocks
and laid open ancient graves, now soften
your stony hearts, and lay bare the old
sepulchres of your conscience, full of dead
men's bones--that is to say, of wicked deeds,
and call again into life your departed spirits.
For this is the voice which once cried: "Adam,
where art thou; and what hast thou done?"
This is the voice which brought Lazarus from
Hades, saying, "Lazarus, come forth: arise
from the grave of sin, and let them free thee
from thy grave-clothes." Truly it was not so
much the grievousness of His sufferings, as
the greatness of our sins, which made our
Lord utter this cry. He cried also, to show
that He had the dominion over life and death,
over the living and the dead. For though he
was quite worn out, and destitute of
strength, and though He had borne the bitter
pangs of death so long, beyond the power of
man, yet He would not allow Death to put
forth its power against Him, until it pleased
Him.

With a loud voice He cried, that earthly men,
who care only for the things of earth, might
quake with fear and trembling, and to cause
them to meditate and see how naked and
helpless the Lord of lords departed from this
life. With a terrible voice He cried, to stir up
all those who live in wantonness, and who
have grown old in their defilement, and send
forth a foul savour, like dead dogs, so that at
last these miserable men may rise from their
lusts and pleasures and sensual delights, and
see how the Son of God, who was never
strained with any spot of defilement, went
forth to His Father; and with what toil and
pain and anguish He departed from the light
of day, and what He had to suffer before He
reached his Father's Kingdom. He also cried
with a loud voice, that He might inflame the
lukewarm and slothful to devotion and love.

Moreover He cried with a loud voice as a sign
of the glorious victory which He had gained,
when after a single combat with His strong
and cruel enemy, and having descended into
the arena— the battlefield of this world--He
had routed him on Mount Calvary and
stripped him bare of his spoils. This victory,
this glorious triumph, Christ proclaimed with
a loud voice, and thus departing from the
battlefield triumphant and victorious, He
departed to the place of all delights, to the
heart and breast of God, His Father,
commending to it, as to a safe refuge, both
Himself and all His own, with the words,
"Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit."

We may learn from these words that the
eternal Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, had been
let down like a fishing-hook or great net, by
the Father of heaven, into the great sea of
this world, that He might catch not fish but
men. Hear how He says: "My word, that
goeth forth out of My mouth shall not return
unto Me void, but shall execute that which I
please, and shall prosper in the thing
whereto I send it." And this net is drawn by
the Father out of the salt sea, to the
peaceful shore of His fatherly heart, full of
the elect, of works of charity, of repentance,
patience, humility, obedience, spiritual

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exercises, merits and virtues. For Christ drew
unto Himself all the afflictions and good
deeds of the good; just as St Paul says, "I
live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Even
so, Christ lives in all the good, and all who
have been willing and obedient instruments
in the hands of Christ. In all such Christ lives
and suffers and works. For whatever good
there is in all men, is all God's work.
Therefore Christ, feeling His Father drawing
Him, gathered together in Himself in a
wonderful manner all the elect with all their
works, and commended them to His Father,
saying, "My Father, these are Thine; these
are the spoils which I have won by My
conquest, by the sword of the Cross; these
are the vessels which I have purchased with
My precious blood; these are the fruits of My
labours. Keep in Thine own name those
whom Thou hast given Me. I pray not that
Thou shouldest take them out of the world,
but that Thou shouldest keep them from the
evil." Thus did Christ commend Himself and
all His own into His Father's hands. Come
therefore, O faithful and devout soul, and
contemplate with great earnestness the
coming in and the going out of thy Lord
Jesus; follow Him with love and longing, even
to the chamber and bed of joy, which He has
prepared for thee in thy Father's heart. Happy
would he be, who could now be dissolved
with Christ, and die with the thief, and hear
from the lips of the Lord that comfortable
word, "This day shalt thou be with Me in
paradise." And though this is not granted to
us, yet whatever we can here gain by labours
and watchings and fastings and prayers, let
us commend it all with Christ to the Father;
let us pour it back again into the fountain,
whence it flowed forth for us; and let nothing
be left in us of empty self-satisfaction, no
seeking after human praise or honour or
reward. But whatever our God hath been
willing to do in us, let us return it back into
His own hands and say, "We are nothing of
ourselves. It is He who made us, and not we
ourselves. All good was made by Him, and
without Him was not anything made. When
therefore He taketh with Him what He made
Himself, we are absolutely nothing."

Lastly, Christ commended His soul into His
Father's hands, to show us how the souls of
good and holy men mount up after Him to the
bosom of the eternal Father, who must
otherwise have gone down to hell; for it is He
who has opened to us the way of life, and
His sacred soul, by making the journey safe
and free from danger, has been our guide
into the kingdom of heaven.

suso

SUSO AND HIS SPIRITUAL
DAUGHTER

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AFTER this, certain very high thoughts arose
in the mind of the servitor's spiritual
daughter, concerning which she asked him
whether she might put questions to him. He
replied, Yea verily: since thou hast been led
through the proper exercises, it is permitted
to thy spiritual intelligence to enquire about
high things. Ask then whatever thou wilt. She
said: Tell me, father, what is God, and how
He is both One and Three? The servitor
replied, These be indeed high questions. As
to the first, What is God, you must know that
all the Doctors who ever lived cannot explain
it, for He is above all sense and reason. Yet
if a man is diligent, and does not relax his
efforts, he gains some knowledge of God,
though very far off. Yet in this knowledge of
God consists our eternal life and man's
supreme happiness. In this way, in former
times, certain worthy philosophers searched
for God, and especially that great thinker
Aristotle, who tried to discover the Author of
Nature from the order of nature and its
course. He sought earnestly, and he was
convinced from the well-ordered course of
nature that there must of necessity be one
Prince and Lord of the whole universe--He
whom we call God. About this God and Lord
we know this much, that He is an immortal
Substance, eternal, without before or after,
simple, bare, unchangeable, an incorporeal
and essential Spirit, whose substance is life
and energy, whose most penetrating
intelligence knows all things in and by itself,
whose essence in itself is an abyss of
pleasures and joys, and who is to Himself,
and to all who shall enjoy Him in a future
life, a supernatural, ineffable, and most
sweet happiness. The maiden, when she
heard this, looked up, and said: These things
are sweet to tell and sweet to hear, for they
rouse the heart, and lift the spirit up far
beyond itself. Therefore, father, tell me more
about these things. The servitor said : The
Divine Essence, about which we speak, is an
intelligible or intellectual Substance of such a
kind, that it cannot be seen in itself by
mortal eyes; but it can be discerned in its
effects, even as we recognise a fine artist by
his works. As the Apostle teaches us, "The
invisible things of God from the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made." For the
creatures are a kind of mirror, in which God
shines. This knowledge is called speculation,
by which we contemplate the great Architect
of the world in His works. Come now, look
upward and about thee, through all the
quarters of the universe, and see how wide
and high the beautiful heaven is, how swift
its motion, and how marvellously its Creator
has adorned it with the seven planets, and
with the countless multitude of the twinkling
stars. Consider what fruitfulness, what
riches, the sun bestows upon the earth, when
in summer it sheds abroad its rays
unclouded! See how the leaves and grass
shoot up, and the flowers smile, and the
woods and plains resound with the sweet
song of nightingales and other birds; how all
the little animals, after being imprisoned by
grim winter, come forth rejoicing, and pair;
and how men and women, both old and
young, rejoice and are merry. 0 Almighty
God, if Thou art so lovable and so pleasant in

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Thy creatures, how happy and blessed, how
full of all joy and beauty, must Thou be in
Thyself? But further, my daughter,
contemplate the elements themselves--Earth,
Water, Air, and Fire, with all the wonderful
things which they contain in infinite variety--
men, beasts, birds, fishes, and sea-
monsters. And all of these give praise and
honour to the unfathomable immensity that
is in Thee. Who is it, Lord, who preserves all
these things, who nourishes them? It is Thou
who providest for all, each in his own way,
for great and small, rich and poor. Thou, O
God, doest this; Thou alone art God indeed!
Behold, my daughter, thou hast now found
the God whom thou hast sought so long.
Look up, then, with shining eyes, with radiant
face and exulting heart, behold Him and
embrace Him with the outstretched arms of
thy soul and mind, and give thanks to Him as
the one and supreme Lord of all creatures. By
gazing on this mirror, there springs up
speedily, in one of loving and pious
disposition, an inward jubilation of the heart;
for by this is meant a joy which no tongue
can tell, though it pours with might through
heart and soul. Alas, I now feel within me,
that I must open for thee the closed mouth
of my soul; and I am compelled, for the glory
of God, to tell thee certain secrets, which I
never yet told to any one. A certain
Dominican, well known to me, at the
beginning of his course used to receive from
God twice every day, morning and evening,
for ten years, an outpouring of grace like
this, which lasted about as long as it would
take to say the "Vigils of the Dead" twice
over.Jj^ At these times he was so entirely
absorbed in God, the eternal Wisdom, that
he would not speak of it. Sometimes he
would converse with God as with a friend, not
with the mouth, but mentally; at other times
he would utter piteous sighs to Him; at other
times he would weep copiously, or smile
silently. He often seemed to himself to be
flying in the air, and swimming between time
and eternity in the depth of the Divine
wonders, which no man can fathom. And his
heart became so full from this, that he would
sometimes lay his hand upon it as it beat
heavily, saying, "Alas, my heart, what labours
will befall thee to-day?" One day it seemed
to him that the heart of his heavenly Father
was, in a spiritual and indescribable manner,
pressed tenderly, and with nothing between,
against his heart; and that the Father's
heart--that is, the eternal Wisdom, spoke
inwardly to his heart without forms. Then
he began to exclaim joyously in spiritual
jubilation: Behold, now, Thou whom I most
fervently love, thus do I lay bare my heart to
Thee, and in simplicity and nakedness of all
created things I embrace Thy formless
Godhead! O God, most excellent of all
friends! Earthly friends must needs endure to
be distinct and separate from those whom
they love; but Thou, O fathomless sweetness
of all true love, meltest into the heart of Thy
beloved, and pourest Thyself fully into the
essence of his soul, that nothing of Thee
remains outside, but Thou art joined and
united most lovingly with Thy beloved.

To this the maiden replied: Truly it is a great
grace, when anyone is thus caught up into

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God. But I should like to be informed,
whether this is the most perfect kind of union
or not? The servitor answered: No, it is not
the most perfect, but a preliminary, gently
drawing a man on, that he may arrive at an
essential way of being carried up into God.
The maiden asked him what he meant by
essential and non-essential. He answered: I
call that man essential or habitual (so to
speak), who by the good and persevering
practice of all the virtues, has arrived at the
point of finding the practice of them in their
highest perfection pleasant to him, even as
the brightness of the sun remains constant in
the sun. But I call him non-essential, in
whom the brightness of the virtues shines in
an unstable and imperfect way like the
brightness of the moon. That full delight of
grace which I described is so sweet to the
spirit of the non-essential man, that he
would be glad always to have it. When he
has it, he rejoices; when he is deprived of it,
he grieves inordinately; and when it smiles
upon him, he is reluctant to pass to doing
other things, even things that are pleasing to
God; as I will show you by an example. The
servitor of the Divine Wisdom was once
walking in the chapter-house, and his heart
was full of heavenly jubilation, when the
porter called him out to see a woman who
wished to confess to him. He was unwilling
to interrupt his inward delight, and received
the porter harshly, bidding him tell the
woman that she must find some one else to
confess to, for he did not wish to hear her
confession just then. She, however, being
oppressed with the burden of her sins, said
that she felt specially drawn to seek comfort
from him, and that she would confess to no
one else. And when he still refused to go out,
she began to weep most sadly, and going
into a corner, lamented greatly. Meanwhile,
God quickly withdrew from the servitor the
delights of grace, and his heart became as
hard as flint. And when he desired to know
the cause of this, God answered him
inwardly: Even as thou hast driven away
uncomforted that poor woman, so have I
withdrawn from thee my Divine comfort. The
servitor groaned deeply and beat his breast,
and hurried to the door, and as he did not
find the woman there, was much distressed.
The porter, however, looked about for her
everywhere, and when he found her, still
weeping, bade her return to the door. When
she came, the servitor received her gently,
and comforted her sorrowing heart. Then he
went back from her to the chapter-house, and
immediately God was with him, with His
Divine consolations, as before.

Then said the maiden: It must be easy for
him to bear sufferings, to whom God gives
such jubilation and internal joys. And yet,
said the servitor, all had to be paid for
afterward with great suffering. However, at
last, when all this had passed away, and
God's appointed time had come, the same
grace of jubilation was restored to him, and
remained with him almost continuously both
at home and abroad, in company and alone.
Often in the bath or at table the same grace
was with him; but it was now internal, and
did show itself outside.

Then the maiden said: My father, I have now

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learned what God is; but I am also eager to
know where He is. Thou shalt hear, said the
servitor. The opinion of the theologians is
that God is in no particular place, but that He
is everywhere, and all in all. The same
doctors say that we come to know a thing
through its name. Now one doctor says that
Being is the first name of God. Turn your
eyes, therefore, to Being in its pure and
naked simplicity, and take no notice of this or
that substance which can be torn asunder
into parts and separated; but consider Being
in itself, unmixed with any Not-Being.
Whatever is nothing, is the negation of what
is; and what is, is the negation of what is
not. A thing which has yet to be, or which
once was, is not now in actual being.
Moreover, we cannot know mixed being or
not-being unless we take into account that
which is all-being. This Being is not the being
of this or that creature; for all particular
being is mixed with something extraneous,
whereby it can receive something new into
itself. Therefore the nameless Divine Being
must be in itself a Being that is all-being,
and that sustains all particular things by its
presence.

It shows the strange blindness of man's
reason, that it cannot examine into that
which it contemplates before everything, and
without which it cannot perceive anything.
Just as, when the eye is bent on noticing
various colours, it does not observe the light
which enables it to see all these objects, and
even if it looks at the light it does not
observe it; so it is with the eye of the soul.
When it looks at this or that particular
substance, it takes no heed of the being,
which is everywhere one, absolute and
simple, and by the virtue and goodness of
which it can apprehend all other things.
Hence the wise Aristotle says, that the eye
of our intelligence, owing to its weakness, is
affected towards that being which is itself
the most manifest of all things, as the eye of
a bat or owl is towards the bright rays of the
sun. For particular substances distract and
dazzle the mind, so that it cannot behold the
Divine darkness, which is the clearest light.

Come now, open the eyes of thy mind, and
gaze if thou canst, on Being in its naked and
simple purity. You will perceive that it comes
from no one, and has no before nor after, and
that it cannot change, because it is simple
Being. You will also observe that it is the
most actual, the most present, and the most
perfect of beings, with no defect or mutation,
because it is absolutely one in its bare
simplicity. This is so evident to an instructed
intellect, that it cannot think otherwise. Since
it is simple Being, it must be the first of
beings, and without beginning or end, and
because it is the first and everlasting and
simple, it must be the most present. If you
can understand this, you will have been
guided far into the incomprehensible light of
God's hidden truth. This pure and simple
Being is altogether in all things, and
altogether outside all things. Hence a certain
doctor says: God is a circle, whose centre is
everywhere, and His circumference nowhere.

When this had been said, the maiden
answered: Blessed be God, I have been

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shown, as far as may be, both what God is,
and where He is. But I should like also to be
told how, if God is so absolutely simple, He
can also be threefold.

The servitor answered : The more simple any
being is in itself, the more manifold is it in
its energy and operation. That which has
nothing gives nothing, and that which has
much can give much. I have already spoken
of the inflowing and overflowing fount of
good which God is in Himself. This infinite
and superessential goodness constrains Him
not to keep it all within Himself, but to
communicate it freely both within and
without Himself. But the highest and most
perfect outpouring of the good must be
within itself, and this can be nought else but
a present, interior, personal and natural
outpouring, necessary, yet without
compulsion, infinite and perfect. Other
communications, in temporal matters, draw
their origin from this eternal communication
of the Divine Goodness. Some theologians
say that in the outflow of the creatures from
their first origin there is a return in a circle of
the end to the beginning; for as the
emanation of the Persons from the Godhead
is an image of the origin of the creatures, so
also it is a type of the flowing back of the
creatures into God. There is, however, a
difference between the outpouring of the
creatures and that of God. The creature is
only a particular and partial substance, and
its giving and communication is also partial
and limited. When a human father begets a
son, he gives him part, but not the whole, of
his own substance, for he himself is only a
partial good. But the outpouring of God is of
a more interior and higher kind than the
creature's outpouring, inasmuch as He
Himself is a higher good. If the outpouring of
God is to be worthy of His pre-eminent being,
it must be according to personal relations.

Now, then, if you can look upon the pure
goodness of the highest Good (which
goodness is, by its nature, the active
principle of the spontaneous love with which
the highest Good loves itself) you will behold
the most excellent and superessential
outpouring of the Word from the Father, by
which generation all things exist and are
produced; and you will see also in the
highest good, and the highest outpouring,
the most holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, existing in the Godhead. And if the
highest outpouring proceeds from the highest
essential good, it follows that there must be
in this Trinity the highest and most intimate
consubstantiality or community of being, and
complete equality and identity of essence,
which the Persons enjoy in sweetest
communion, and also that the Substance and
power of the three almighty Persons is
undivided and unpartitioned.

Here the maiden exclaimed: Marvellous! I
swim in the Godhead like an eagle in the air.
The servitor, resuming his exposition,
continued: It is impossible to express in
words how the Trinity can subsist in the unity
of one essence. Nevertheless, to say what
may be said on the subject, Augustine says
that in the Godhead the Father is the
Fountain-head of the Son and the Holy Ghost.

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Dionysius says, that in the Father there is an
outflowing of the Godhead, which naturally
communicates itself to the Word or Son. He
also freely and lovingly pours Himself out
into the Son; and the Son in turn pours
Himself out freely and lovingly into the
Father; and this love of the Father for the
Son, and of the Son for the Father, is the
Holy Ghost. This is truly said, but it is made
clearer by that glorious Doctor of the Church,
St Thomas, who says as follows: In the
outpouring of the Word from the Father's
heart, God the Father must contemplate
Himself with His own mind, bending back, as
it were, upon His Divine essence; for if the
reason of the Father had not the Divine
essence for its object, the Word so conceived
would be a creature instead of God; which is
false. But in the way described He is "God of
God." Again, this looking back upon the
Divine essence, which takes place in the
mind of God, must, in a manner, produce a
natural likeness; else the Word would not be
the Son of God. So here we have the unity of
essence in the diversity of Persons; and a
clear proof of this distinction may be found in
the word of that soaring eagle St John: "The
Word was in the beginning with God."

Thus the Father is the Fountain-head of the
Son, and the Son is the outflowing of the
Father; and the Father and Son pour forth the
Spirit; and the Unity, which is the essence of
the Fountain-head, is also the substance of
the three Persons. But as to how the Three
are One, this cannot be expressed in words,
on account of the simplicity of that Abyss.
Into this intellectual Where, the spirits of
men made perfect soar and plunge
themselves, now flying over infinite heights,
now swimming in unfathomed depths,
marvelling at the high and wonderful
mysteries of the Godhead. Nevertheless, the
spirit remains a spirit, and retains its nature,
while it enjoys the vision of the Divine
Persons, and abstracted from all occupation
with things below contemplates with fixed
gaze those stupendous mysteries. For what
can be more marvellous than that simple
Unity, into which the Trinity of the Persons
merges itself, and in which all multiplicity
ceases? For the outflowing of the Persons is
always tending back into the Unity of the
same essence, and all creatures, according to
their ideal existence in God, are from eternity
in this Unity, and have their life, knowledge,
and essence in the eternal God; as it is said
in the Gospel: "That which was made, was
Life in Him.' TxIiil This bare Unity is a dark
silence and tranquil inactivity, which none
can understand unless he is illuminated by
the Unity itself, unmixed with any evil. Out of
this shines forth hidden truth, free from all
falsehood; and this truth is born from the
unveiling of the veiled Divine purity; for after
the revelation of these things, the spirit is at
last unclothed of the dusky light which up till
now has followed it, and in which it has
hitherto seen things in an earthly way.
Indeed, the spirit finds itself now changed
and something very different from what it
supposed itself to be according to its earlier
light: even as St Paul says, "I, yet not I."
Thus it is unclothed and simplified in the
simplicity of the Divine essence, which shines

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upon all things in simple stillness. In this
modeless mode of contemplation, the
permanent distinction of the Persons, viewed
as separate, is lost. For, as some teach, it is
not the Person of the Father, taken by
Himself, which produces bliss, nor the Person
of the Son, taken by Himself, nor the Person
of the Holy Ghost, taken by Himself; but the
three Persons, dwelling together in the unity
of the essence, confer bliss. And this is the
natural essence of the Persons, which by
grace gives the substance or essence to all
their creatures, and it contains in itself the
ideas of all things in their simple essence.
Now since this ideal light subsists as Being,
so all things subsist in it according to their
essential being, not according to their
accidental forms; and since it shines upon all
things, its property is to subsist as light.
Hence all things shine forth in this essence in
interior stillness, without altering its
simplicity.

Then the maiden said: I could wish greatly,
sir, that you could give me this mysterious
teaching, as you understand it, under a
figure, that I might understand it better. I
should also be glad if you could sum up what
you have been saying at length, so that it
may stick more firmly in my weak mind. The
servitor replied: Who can express in forms
what has no form? Who can explain that
which has no mode of being, and is above
sense and reason? Any similitude must be
infinitely more unlike than like the reality.
Nevertheless, that I may drive out forms from
your mind by forms, I will try to give you a
picture of these ideas which surpass all
forms, and to sum up a long discourse in a
few words. A certain wise theologian says
that God, in regard to His Godhead, is like a
vast circle, of which the centre is everywhere,
and the circumference nowhere. Now consider
the image which follows. If anyone throws a
great stone into the middle of a pool, a ring
is formed in the water, and this ring makes a
second ring, and the second a third; and the
number and size of the rings depend on the
force of the throw. They may even require a
larger space than the limit of the pool.
Suppose now that the first ring represents
the omnipotent virtue of the Divine nature,
which is infinite in God the Father. This
produces another ring like itself, which is the
Son. And the two produce the third, which is
the Holy Ghost. The spiritual superessential
begetting of the Divine Word is the cause of
the creation of all spirits and all things. This
supreme Spirit has so ennobled man, as to
shed upon him a ray from His own eternal
Godhead. This is the image of God in the
mind, which is itself eternal. But many men
turn away from this dignity of their nature,
befouling the bright image of God in
themselves, and turning to the bodily
pleasures of this world. They pursue them
greedily and devote themselves to them, till
death unexpectedly stops them. But he who
is wise, turns himself and elevates himself,
with the help of the Divine spark in his soul,
to that which is stable and eternal, whence
he had his own origin: he says farewell to all
the fleeting creatures, and clings to the
eternal truth alone.

Attend also to what I sav about the order in

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which the spirit ought to return to God. First
of all, we should disentangle ourselves
absolutely from the pleasures of the world,
manfully turning our backs upon all vices; we
should turn to God by continual prayers, by
seclusion, and holy exercise, that the flesh
may thus be subdued to the spirit. Next, we
must offer ourselves willingly to endure all
the troubles which may come upon us, from
God, or from the creatures. Thirdly, we must
impress upon ourselves the Passion of Christ
crucified; we must fix upon our minds His
sweet teaching, His most gentle
conversation, His most pure life, which He
gave us for our example, and so we must
penetrate deeper and advance further in our
imitation of Him. Fourthly, we must divest
ourselves of external occupations, and
establish ourselves in a tranquil stillness of
soul by an energetic resignation, as if we
were dead to self, and thought only of the
honour of Christ and His heavenly Father.
Lastly, we should be humble towards all men,
whether friends or foes. . . . But all these
images, with their interpretations, are as
unlike the formless truth as a black Ethiopian
is to the bright sun.

Soon after this holy maiden died, and passed
away happy from earth, even as her whole
life had been conspicuous only for her
virtues. After her death she appeared to her
spiritual father in a vision. She was clothed in
raiment whiter than snow; she shone with
dazzling brightness, and was full of heavenly
joy. She came near to him, and showed him
in what an excellent fashion she had passed
away into the simple Godhead. He saw and
heard her with exceeding delight, and the
vision filled his soul with heavenly
consolations. When he returned to himself,
he sighed most deeply, and thus pondered: O
Almighty God, how blessed is he, who strives
after Thee alone! He may well be content to
bear affliction, whose sufferings Thou wilt
thus reward! May the Almighty God grant that
we likewise may be brought to the same joys
as this blessed maiden!

A MEDITATION ON THE
PASSION OF CHRIST

THEN said the Eternal Wisdom to the
servitor, Attend and listen dutifully, while I
tell thee what sufferings I lovingly endured
for thy sake.

After I had finished My last Supper with My
disciples, when I had offered Myself to My
enemies on the mount, and had resigned
Myself to bear a terrible death, and knew
that it was approaching very near, so great
was the oppression of My tender heart and all
My body, that I sweated blood; then I was
wickedly arrested, bound, and carried away.
On the same night they treated Me with
insult and contumely, beating Me, spitting
upon Me, and covering My head. Before
Caiaphas was I unjustly accused and
condemned to death. What misery it was to
see My mother seized with unspeakable

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sorrow of heart, from the time when she
beheld Me threatened with such great
dangers, till the time when I was hung upon
the cross. They brought Me before Pilate with
every kind of ignominy, they accused Me
falsely, they adjudged Me worthy of death.
Before Herod I, the Eternal Wisdom, was
mocked in a bright robe. My fair body was
miserably torn and rent by cruel scourgings.
They surrounded My sacred head with a crown
of thorns; My gracious face was covered with
blood and spittings. When they had thus
condemned Me to death, they led Me out with
My cross to bear the last shameful
punishment. Their terrible and savage cries
could be heard afar off: "Crucify, crucify, the
wicked man."

Servitor. Alas, Lord, if so bitter were the
beginnings of Thy passion, what will be the
end thereof? In truth, if I saw a brute beast
so treated in my presence I could hardly bear
it. What grief then should I feel in heart and
soul at Thy Passion? And yet there is one
thing at which I marvel greatly. Fori long, O
my most dear God, to know only Thy
Godhead; and Thou tellest me of Thy
humanity. I long to taste Thy sweetness, and
Thou showest me Thy bitterness. What
meaneth this, 0 my Lord God?

Wisdom. No man can come to the height of
My Godhead, nor attain to that unknown
sweetness, unless he be first led through the
bitterness of My humanity. My humanity is
the road by which men must travel. My
Passion is the gate, through which they must
enter. Away then with thy cowardice of heart,
and come to Me prepared for a hard
campaign. For it is not right for the servant
to live softly and delicately, while his Lord is
fighting bravely. Come, I will now put on thee
My own armour. And so thou must thyself
also experience the whole of My Passion, so
far as thy strength permits. Take, therefore,
the heart of a man; for be sure that thou wilt
have to endure many deaths, before thou
canst put thy nature under the yoke. I will
sprinkle thy garden of spices with red
flowers. Many are the afflictions which will
come upon thee; till thou hast finished thy
sad journey of bearing the cross, and hast
renounced thine own will and disengaged
thyself so completely from all creatures, in all
things, which might hinder thine eternal
salvation, as to be like one about to die, and
no longer mixed up with the affairs of this
life.

Servitor. Hard and grievous to bear are the
things which Thou sayest, Lord. I tremble all
over. How can I bear all these things? Suffer
me, O Lord, to ask Thee something. Couldst
Thou not devise any other way of saving my
soul, and of testifying Thy love towards me,
so as to spare Thyself such hard sufferings,
and so that I need not suffer so bitterly with
Thee?

Wisdom. The unfathomable Abyss of My
secret counsels no man ought to seek to
penetrate, for no one can comprehend it. And
yet that which thou hast suggested, and
many other things, might have been possible,
which nevertheless never happen. Be
assured, however, that as created things now

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are, no more fitting method could be found.
The Author of Nature doth not think so much
what He is able to do in the world, as what is
most fitting for every creature; and this is
the principle of His operations. And by what
other means could the secrets of God have
been made known to man, than by the
assumption of humanity by Christ? By what
other means could he who had deprived
himself of joy by the inordinate pursuit of
pleasure, be brought back more fittingly to
the joys of eternity? And who would be
willing to tread the path, avoided by all, of a
hard and despised life, if God had not
trodden it Himself? If thou wert condemned
to death, how could any one show his love
and fidelity to thee more convincingly, or
provoke thee to love him in return more
powerfully, than by taking thy sentence upon
himself? If, then, there is any one who is not
roused and moved to love Me from his heart
by My immense love, My infinite pity, My
exalted divinity, My pure humanity, My
brotherly fidelity, My sweet friendship, is
there anything that could soften that stony
heart?

Servitor. The light begins to dawn upon me,
and I seem to myself to see clearly that it is
as Thou sayest, and that whoever is not
altogether blind must admit that this is the
best and most fitting of all ways. And yet the
imitation of Thee is grievous to a slothful and
corruptible body.

Wisdom. Shrink not because thou must follow
the footsteps of My Passion. For he who
loves God, and is inwardly united to Him,
finds the cross itself light and easy to bear,
and has nought to complain of. No one
receives from Me more marvellous sweetness,
than he who shares My bitterest labours. He
only complains of the bitterness of the rind,
who has not tasted the sweetness of the
kernel. He who relies on Me as his protector
and helper may be considered to have
accomplished a large part of his task.

Servitor. Lord, by these consoling words I am
so much encouraged, that I seem to myself
to be able to do and suffer all things through
Thee. I pray Thee, then, that Thou wilt unfold
the treasure of Thy Passion to me more fully.

Wisdom. When I was hung aloft and fastened
to the wood of the cross (which I bore for My
great love to thee and all mankind), all the
wonted appearance of My body was piteously
changed. My bright eyes lost their light; My
sacred ears were filled with mocking and
blasphemy; My sweet mouth was hurt by the
bitter drink. Nowhere was there any rest or
refreshment for Me. My sacred head hung
down in pain; My fair neck was cruelly
bruised; My shining face was disfigured by
festering wounds; My fresh colour was turned
to pallor. In a word, the beauty of My whole
body was so marred, that I appeared like a
leper--I, the Divine Wisdom, who am fairer
than the sun.

Servitor. O brightest mirror of grace, which
the Angels desire to look into, in which they
delight to fix their gaze, would that I might
behold Thy beloved countenance in the
throes of death just long enough to water it

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with the tears of my heart, and to satisfy my
mind with lamentations over it.

Wisdom. No one more truly testifies his grief
over My Passion, than he who in very deed
passes through it with Me. Far more pleasing
to Me is a heart disentangled from the love
of all transitory things, and earnestly intent
on gaining the highest perfection according to
the example which I have set before him in
My life, than one which continually weeps
over My Passion, shedding as many tears as
all the raindrops that ever fell. For this was
what I most desired and looked for in My
endurance of that cruel death — namely, that
mankind might imitate Me; and yet pious
tears are very dear to Me.

Servitor. Since then, O most gracious God,
the imitation of Thy most gentle life and
most loving Passion is so pleasing to Thee, I
will henceforth labour more diligently to
follow Thy Passion than to weep over it. But
since both are pleasing to Thee, teach me, I
pray Thee, how I ought to conform myself to
Thy Passion.

Wisdom. Forbid thyself the pleasure of
curious and lax seeing and hearing; let love
make sweet to thee those things which
formerly thou shrankest from; eschew bodily
pleasures; rest in Me alone; bear sweetly and
moderately the ills that come from others;
desire to despise thyself; break thy
appetites; crush out all thy pleasures and
desires. These are the first elements in the
school of Wisdom, which are read in the
volume of the book of My crucified body. But
consider whether anyone, do what he may,
can make himself for My sake such as I made
Myself for his.

Servitor. Come then, my soul, collect thyself
from all external things, into the tranquil
silence of the inner man. Woe is me! My
heavenly Father had adopted my soul to be
His bride; but I fled far from Him. Alas, I
have lost my Father, I have lost my Lover.
Alas, alas, and woe is me! What have I done,
what have I lost? Shame on me, I have lost
myself, and all the society of my heavenly
country. All that could delight and cheer me
has utterly forsaken me; I am left naked. My
false lovers were only deceivers. They have
stripped me of all the good things which my
one true Lover gave me; they have despoiled
me of all honour, joy, and consolation. O ye
red roses and white lilies, behold me a vile
weed, and see also how soon those flowers
wither and die, which this world plucks. And
yet, O most gracious God, none of my
sufferings are of any account, compared with
this, that I have grieved the eyes of my
heavenly Father. This is indeed hell, and a
cross more intolerable than all other pain. 0
heart of mine, harder than flint or adamant,
why dost thou not break for grief? Once I was
called the bride of the eternal King, now I
deserve not to be called the meanest of his
handmaids. Never again shall I dare to raise
mine eyes, for shame. O that I could hide
myself in some vast forest, with none to see
or hear me, till I had wept to my heart's
desire. O Sin, Sin, whither hast thou brought
me? 0 deceitful World, woe to those who
serve thee! Now I have thy reward, I receive

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thy wages--namely, that I am a burden to
myself and the whole world, and always shall
be.

Wisdom. Thou must by no means despair; it
was for thy sins and those of others that I
came into this world, that I might restore
thee to Thy heavenly Father, and bring thee
back to greater glory and honour than thou
ever hadst before.

Servitor. Ah, what is this, which whispers
such flattering things to a soul that is dead,
abhorred, rejected?

Wisdom. Dost thou not know Me? Why art
thou so despondent? Art thou beside thyself
with excessive grief, My dearest son?
Knowest thou not that I am Wisdom, most
gentle and tender, in whom is the Abyss of
infinite mercy, never yet explored perfectly
even by all the saints, but none the less
open to thee and all other sorrowing hearts. I
am he who for thy sake willed to be poor and
an exile, that I might recall thee to thy
former honour. I am He who bore a bitter
death, that I might restore thee to life. I am
thy Brother; I am thy Bridegroom. I have put
away all the wrong that thou ever didst
against Me, even as if it had never been, only
henceforth, thou must turn wholly to Me, and
never again forsake Me. Wash away thy
stains in My blood. Lift up thy head, open
thine eyes, and take heart. In token of
reconciliation, take this ring and put it on thy
finger as My bride, put on this robe, and
these shoes on thy feet, and receive this
sweet and loving name, that thou mayst both
be and be called for ever My bride. Thou has
cost Me much labour and pain; for that cause,
the Abyss of My mercy toward thee is
unfathomable.

Servitor. 0 kindest Father, O sweetest
Brother, O only joy of my heart, wilt Thou be
so favourable to my unworthy soul? What is
this grace? What is the Abyss of Thy
clemency and mercy? From the bottom of my
heart I thank Thee, O heavenly Father, and
beseech Thee by Thy beloved Son, whom
Thou hast willed to suffer a cruel death for
love, to forget my impieties. . . .

Now, O Lord, I remember that most loving
word, wherewith in the book of
Ecclesiasticus iijJThou drawest us to
Thyself. "Come to me, all ye who desire me,
and be filled with my fruits. I am the mother
of beautiful affection. My breath is sweeter
than honey, and my inheritance above honey
and the honeycomb." "Wine and music rejoice
the heart, and above both is the love of
Wisdom, " [xliv] Of a surety, O Lord, Thou
showest Thyself so lovable and desirable,
that it is no wonder that the hearts of all
long for Thee, and are tormented by the
desire of Thee. Thy words breathe love, and
flow so sweetly, that in many hearts the love
of temporal things has wholly dried up.
Therefore, I greatly long to hear Thee speak
of Thy lovableness. Come, O Lord, my only
comfort, speak to the heart of Thy servant.
For I sleep sweetly beneath Thy shadow, and
my heart is awake.

Wisdom. Hear, My son, and see; incline thine

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ear, forgetting thyself and all other things.
Lo, I in Myself am that ineffable Good, which
is and ever was; which has never been
expressed nor ever will be. For although I
give Myself to be felt by men in their inmost
hearts, yet no tongue can ever declare or
explain in words what I am. For verily all the
beauty, grace, and adornment which can be
conceived by thee or by others, exists in me
far more excellently, more pleasantly, more
copiously, than any one could say in words. I
am the most loving Word of the Father,
begotten from the pure substance of the
Father, and wondrously pleasing am I to His
loving eyes in the sweet and burning love of
the Holy Spirit. I am the throne of happiness,
the crown of souls: most bright are Mine
eyes, most delicate My mouth, My cheeks are
red and white, and all My appearance is full
of grace and loveliness. All the heavenly host
gaze upon Me with wonder and admiration;
their eyes are ever fixed upon Me, their
hearts rest in Me, their minds turn to Me and
turn again. O thrice and four times happy is
he, to whom it shall be given to celebrate
this play of love amid heavenly joys at My
side, holding My tender hands in happiest
security, for ever and ever to all eternity.
Only the word that proceeds out of My sweet
mouth surpasses the melodies of all the
angels, the sweet harmony of all harps, and
musical instruments of every kind. . . .

Servitor. There are three things, O Lord, at
which I marvel greatly. The first is, that
although Thou art in Thyself so exceedingly
loving, yet towards sin Thou art a most
severe judge and avenger. Alas, Thy face in
wrath is too terrible; the words which Thou
speakest in anger pierce the heart and soul
like fire. O holy and adorable God, save me
from Thy wrathful countenance, and defer not
till the future life my punishment.

Wisdom. I am the unchangeable Good,
remaining always the same. The reason why I
do not appear always the same, is on
account of those who do not behold Me in the
same way. By nature I am friendly; yet none
the less I punish vice severely, so that I
deserve to be feared. From My friends I
require a pure and filial fear, and a friendly
love, that fear may ever restrain them from
sin, and that love may join them to Me in
unbroken loyalty.

Servitor. What Thou sayest pleases me, O
Lord, and it is as I would have it. But there is
another thing at which I greatly marvel--how
it is that when the soul is faint from desire of
the sweetness of Thy presence, Thou art
wholly mute, and dost not utter a single word
that can be heard. And who, O Lord, would
not be grieved, when Thou showest Thyself
so strange, so silent, to the soul that loves
Thee above all things?

Wisdom. And yet all the creatures speak of
Me.

Servitor. But that is by no means enough
for the soul that loves.

Wisdom. Also every word that is uttered
about Me is a message of My love; all the
voices of holy Scripture that are written about

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Me are letters of love, sweet as honey. They
are to be received as if I had written them
Myself. Ought not this to satisfy thee?

Servitor. Nay but, O most holy God, dearest
Friend of all to me, Thou knowest well that a
heart which is on fire with love is not
satisfied with anything that is not the
Beloved himself, in whom is its only comfort.
Even though all the tongues of all the angelic
spirits were to speak to me, none the less
would my unquenchable love continue to
yearn and strive for the one thing which it
desires. The soul that loves Thee would
choose Thee rather than the kingdom of
heaven. Pardon me, 0 Lord: it would become
Thee to show more kindness to those who
love Thee so ardently, who sigh and look up
to Thee and say: Return, return! Who
anxiously debate with themselves: alas,
thinkest thou that thou hast offended Him?
That He has deserted thee? Thinkest thou
that He will ever restore thee His most sweet
presence, that thou wilt ever again embrace
Him with the arms of Thy heart, and press
Him to thy breast, that all thy grief and
trouble may vanish? All this, O Lord, Thou
hearest and knowest, and yet Thou art silent.

Wisdom. Certainly I know all this, and I
watch it with great pleasure. But I would
have thee also answer a few questions, since
thy wonder, though veiled, is so great. What
is it which gives the greatest joy to the
highest of all created spirits?

Servitor. Ah, Lord, this question is beyond
my range. I prithee, answer it Thyself.

Wisdom. I will do as thou desirest. The
highest angelic spirit finds nothing more
desirable or more delightful than to satisfy
My will in all things; so much so, that if he
knew that it would redound to My praise for
him to root out nettles and tares, he would
diligently fulfil this task in preference to all
others.

Servitor. Of a truth, Lord, this answer of
Thine touches me sharply. I perceive that it
is Thy will that I should be resigned in the
matter of receiving and feeling tokens of Thy
love, and that I should seek Thy glory alone,
in dryness and hardness as well as in
sweetness.

Wisdom. No resignation is more perfect or
more excellent, than to be resigned in
dereliction.

Servitor. And yet, O Lord, the pain is very
grievous.

Wisdom. Wherein is virtue proved, if not in
adversity? But be assured, that I often come,
and try whether the door into My house is
open, but find Myself repulsed. Many times I
am received like a stranger, harshly treated,
and then driven out of doors. Nay, I not only
come to the soul that loves me, but tarry
with her like a friend; but that is done so
secretly, that none know it save those who
live quite detached and separated from men,
and observe My ways, and care only to please
and satisfy My grace. For according to My
Divinity I am purest Spirit, and I am received

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spiritually in pure spirits.

Servitor. So far as I understand, Lord God,
Thou art a very secret Lover. How glad would
I be if Thou wouldest give me some signs, by
which I might know Thee to be truly present.

Wisdom. By no other way canst thou know
the certainty of My presence better, than
when I hide Myself from thee, and withdraw
what is Mine from thy soul. Then at last thou
knowest by experience what I am, and what
thou art. Of a surety I am everlasting Good,
without whom no one can have anything
good. When therefore I impart that immense
Good, which is Myself, generously and
lovingly, and scatter it abroad, all things to
which I communicate Myself are clothed with
a certain goodness, by which My presence can
be as easily inferred, as that of the Sun, the
actual ball of which cannot be seen, by its
rays. If therefore thou everfeelest My
presence, enter into thyself, and learn how to
separate the roses from the thorns, the
flowers from the weeds.

Servitor. Lord, I do search, and I find within
myself a great diversity. When I am deserted
by Thee, my soul is like a sick man, whose
taste is spoiled. Nothing pleases me, but all
things disgust me. My body is torpid, my
mind oppressed; within is dryness, without is
sadness. All that I see or hear, however good
in reality, is distasteful and hateful to me. I
am easily led into sins; I am weak to resist
my enemies; I am cold or lukewarm towards
all good. Whoever comes to me, finds my
house empty. For the House-Father is away,
who knows how to counsel for the best, and
to inspire the whole household. On the other
hand, when the day-star arises in my inmost
heart, all the pain quickly vanishes, all the
darkness is dispelled, and a great brightness
arises and shines forth. My heart laughs, my
mind is exalted, my soul becomes cheerful,
all things around me are blithe and merry;
whatever is around me and within me is
turned to Thy praise. That which before
seemed hard, difficult, irksome, impossible,
becomes suddenly easy and pleasant. To give
myself to fasting, watching, and prayer, to
suffer or abstain or avoid, in a word all the
hardnesses of life seem when compared with
Thy presence to have no irksomeness at all.
My soul is bathed in radiance, truth, and
sweetness, so that all its labours are
forgotten. My heart delights itself in
abundant sweet meditations, my tongue
learns to speak of high things, my body is
brisk and ready for any undertaking; whoever
comes to ask my advice, takes back with him
high counsels such as he desired to hear. In
short, I seem to myself to have transcended
the limits of time and space, and to be
standing on the threshold of eternal bliss.
But who, O Lord, can secure for me, that I
may be long in this state? Alas, in a moment
it is withdrawn from me; and for a long space
again I am left as naked and destitute as if I
had never experienced anything of the kind;
till at last, after many and deep sighings of
heart, it is restored to me. Is this Thou, O
Lord, or rather I myself? Or what is it?

Wisdom. Of thyself thou hast nothing except
faults and defects. Therefore that about

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which thou askest is I Myself, and this is the
play of love.

Servitor. What is the play of love?

Wisdom. So long as the loved one is present
with the lover, the lover knoweth not how
dear the loved one is to him; it is only
separation which can teach him that.

Servitor. It is a very grievous game. But tell
me, Lord, are there any who in this life no
longer experience these vicissitudes of Thy
presence?

Wisdom. You will find very few indeed. For
never to be deprived of My presence belongs
not to temporal but to eternal life.

APHORISMS AND MAXIMS

ACT according to the truth in simplicity; and,
whatever happens, do not help thyself; for he
who helps himself too much will not be
helped by the Truth.

God wishes not to deprive us of pleasure; but
He wishes to give us pleasure in its totality—
that is, all pleasure.

Wilt thou be of use to all creatures? Then
turn thyself away from all creatures.

If a man cannot comprehend a thing, let him
remain quiet, and it will comprehend him.

Say to the creatures, I will not be to thee
what thou art to me.

The power of abstaining from things gives us
more power than the possession of them
would.

Some men one meets who have been
inwardly drawn by God, but have not followed
Him. The inner man and the outer man in
these cases are widely at variance, and in
this way many fail.

He who has attained to the purgation of his
senses in God performs all the operations of
the senses all the better.

He who finds the inward in the outward goes
deeper than he who only finds the inward in
the inward.

He is on the right road who contemplates
under the forms of things their eternal
essence.

It is well with a man who has died to self
and begun to live in Christ.

THEOLOGIA GERMANICA
SIN AND SELFISHNESS

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SIN is nothing else but the turning away of
the creature from the unchangeable Good to
the changeable; from the perfect to the
imperfect, and most often to itself. And when
the creature claims for its own anything
good, such as substance, life, knowledge, or
power, as if it were that, or possessed it, or
as if that proceeded from itself, it goeth
astray. What else did the devil do, and what
was his error and fall, except that he claimed
for himself to be something, and that
something was his and was due to him? This
claim of his--this "I, me, and mine," were his
error and his fall. And so it is to this day. For
what else did Adam do? It is said that Adam
was lost, or fell, because he ate the apple. I
say, it was because he claimed something for
his own, because of his "I, me, and mine." If
he had eaten seven apples, and yet never
claimed anything for his own, he would not
have fallen: but as soon as he called
something his own, he fell, and he would
have fallen, though he had never touched an
apple. I have fallen a hundred times more
often and more grievously than Adam; and
for his fall all mankind could not make
amends. How then shall my fall be amended?
It must be healed even as Adam's fall was
healed. And how, and by whom, was that
healing wrought? Man could not do it without
God, and God could not do it without man.
Therefore God took upon Himself human
nature; He was made man, and man was
made God. Thus was the healing effected. So
also must my fall be healed. I cannot do the
work without God, and He may not or will not
do it without me. If it is to be done, God
must be made man in me also; God must
take into Himself all that is in me, both
within and without, so that there may be
nothing in me which strives against God or
hinders His work. Now if God took to Himself
all men who are or ever lived in the world,
and was made man in them, and they were
deified in Him, and this work were not
accomplished in me, my fall and my error
would never be healed unless this were
accomplished in me also. And in this bringing
back and healing I can and shall do nothing
of myself; I shall simply commit myself to
God, so that He alone may do and work all
things in me, and that I may suffer Him, and
all His work, and His divine will. And because
I will not do this, but consider myself to be
mine own, and "I, me, and mine," and the
like, God is impeded, and cannot do His work
in me alone and without let or hindrance; this
is why my fall and error remain unhealed. All
comes of my claiming something for my own.
ii., iii.

THE TWO EYES

We should remember the saying that the soul
of Christ had two eyes, a right eye and a left
eye. In the beginning, when the soul of
Christ was created, she fixed her right eye
upon eternity and the Godhead, and

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remained in the full beholding and fruition of
the Divine essence and eternal perfection;
and thus remained unmoved by all the
accidents and labours, the suffering, anguish,
and pain, that befell the outer man. But with
the left eye she looked upon the creation,
and beheld all things that are therein, and
observed how the creatures differ from each
other, how they are better or worse, nobler or
baser; and after this manner was the outer
man of Christ ordered. Thus the inner man of
Christ, according to the right eye of His soul,
stood in the full exercise of His Divine
nature, in perfect blessedness, joy, and
eternal peace. But the outer man and the left
eye of the soul of Christ stood with Him in
perfect suffering, in all His tribulations,
afflictions and labours; in such a way that
the inner or right eye remained unmoved,
unimpeded and untouched by all the labour,
suffering, woe, and misery that happened to
the outer man. It has been said that when
Jesus was bound to the pillar and scourged,
and when He hung on the cross, according to
the outer man, the inner man, a soul
according to the right eye, stood in as full
possession of Divine joy and blessedness as
it did after the ascension, or as it does now.
Even so His outer man, or soul according to
the left eye, was never impeded, disturbed,
or troubled by the inward eye in its
contemplation of the outward things which
pertained to it. The created soul of man has
also two eyes. The one is the power of
looking into eternity, the other the power of
looking into time and the creatures, of
perceiving how they differ from each other, of
giving sustenance and other things necessary
to the body, and ordering and ruling it for the
best. But these two eyes of the soul cannot
both perform their office at once; if the soul
would look with the right eye into eternity,
the left eye must be shut, and must cease to
work: it must be as if it were dead. For if the
left eye is discharging its office towards
outward things--if it is holding conversation
with time and the creatures— then the right
eye must be impeded in its working, which is
contemplation. Therefore, he who would have
one must let the other go; for no man can
serve two masters, vii.

A FORETASTE OF ETERNAL

Some have asked whether it is possible for
the soul, while it is still in the body, to reach
so great a height as to gaze into eternity,
and receive a foretaste of eternal life and
blessedness. This is commonly denied; and in
a sense the denial is true. For indeed it
cannot come about, so long as the soul is
occupied with the body, and the things which
minister to the body and belong to it, and to
time and created things, and is disturbed and
troubled and distracted by them. For the soul
that would mount to such a state, must be
quite pure, entirely stripped and bare of all
images; it must be wholly separate from all
creatures, and above all from itself. Many
think that this is impossible in this present

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life. But St Dionysius claims that it is
possible, as we find from his words in his
letter to Timothy, where he says: "In order to
behold the hidden things of God, thou shalt
forsake sense and the things of the flesh,
and all that can be perceived by the senses,
and all that reason can bring forth by her own
power, and all things created and uncreated
which reason can know and comprehend, and
thou shalt stand upon an utter abandonment
of thyself, as if thou knewest none of those
things which I have mentioned, and thou
shalt enter into union with Him who is, and
who is above all existence and knowledge." If
he did not think this to be possible in this
present time, why did he teach it and urge it
upon us in this present time? But you ought
to know that a master has said, about this
passage of St Dionysius, that it is possible,
and may come to a man so often that he may
become accustomed to it, and be able to
gaze into eternity whenever he will. And a
single one of these glances is better,
worthier, higher, and more pleasing to God
than all that the creature can do as a
creature. He who has attained to it asks for
nothing more, for he has found the kingdom
of heaven and eternal life here on earth, viii.

DESCENT INTO HELL

Even as the soul of Christ had to descend
into hell, before it ascended into heaven, so
must the soul of man. And mark how this
comes to pass. When a man truly perceives
and considers who and what he is, and finds
himself wholly base and wicked, and
unworthy of all the consolation and kindness
that he ever received, either from God or
from the creatures, he falls into such a
profound abasement and contempt for
himself, that he thinks himself unworthy to
walk upon the earth; he feels that he
deserves that all creatures should rise
against him and avenge their Maker upon him
with punishments and torments; nay, even
that were too good for him. And therefore he
will not and dare not desire any consolation
or release, either from God or any creature;
he is willing to be unconsoled and
unreleased, and he does not lament for his
condemnation and punishment, for they are
right and just, and in accordance with God's
will. Nothing grieves him but his own guilt
and wickedness; for that is not right, and is
contrary to God's will: for this reason he is
heavy and troubled. This is the meaning of
true repentance for sin. And the man who in
this life enters into this hell, enters
afterwards into the kingdom of heaven, and
has a foretaste of it which exceeds all the
delights and happiness which he has ever
had, or could have, from the things of time.
But while a man is in this hell, no one can
comfort him, neither God, nor the creatures.
Of this condition it has been written, "Let me
die, let me perish! I live without hope; from
within and from without I am condemned, let
no man pray for my deliverance." Now God
has not forsaken a man, while he is in this
hell, but He is laying His hand upon him, that

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he may desire nothing but the eternal Good
only, and may discover that this is so noble
and exceedingly good, that its blessedness
cannot be searched out nor expressed,
comfort and joy, peace, rest, and
satisfaction. When, therefore, the man cares
for and seeks and desires the eternal Good
and nought beside, and seeks not himself,
nor his own things, but the glory of God only,
he is made to partake of every kind of joy,
blessedness, peace, rest, and comfort, and
from that time forward is in the kingdom of
God.

This hell and this heaven are two good safe
ways for a man in this present life, and he is
happy who truly finds them. For this hell shall
pass away, but this heaven shall abide for
evermore. Let a man also observe, that when
he is in this hell, nothing can console him;
and he cannot believe that he shall ever be
delivered or comforted. But when he is in
heaven, nothing can disturb him: he believes
that no one will ever be able to offend or
trouble him again, though it is indeed
possible that he may again be troubled and
left unconsoled.

This heaven and hell come upon a man in
such a way, that he knows not whence they
come; and he can do nothing himself towards
making them either come or depart. He can
neither give them to himself, nor take them
away from himself, neither bring them nor
drive them away; even as it is written, "The
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh or whither it goeth." And
when a man is in either of these two states,
all is well with him, and he is as safe in hell
as in heaven. And while a man is in the
world, it is possible for him to pass many
times from the one state into the other--even
within a day and night, and without any
motion of his own. But when a man is in
neither of these two states, he holds
intercourse with the creatures, and is carried
this way and that, and knows not what
manner of man he is. A man should therefore
never forget either of these states, but carry
the memory of them in his heart, xi.

THE THREE STAGES

Be well assured that none can be illuminated,
unless he be first cleansed, purified, or
stripped. Also none can be united to God
unless he be first illuminated. There are
therefore three stages--first, the purification;
secondly, the illumination; and thirdly, the
union. The purification belongs to those who
are beginning or repenting. It is effected in
three ways; by repentance and sorrow for sin,
by full confession, and by hearty amendment.
The illumination belongs to those who are
growing, and it also is effected in three
ways; by the renunciation of sin, by the
practice of virtue and good works, and by
willing endurance of all trials and
temptations. The union belongs to those who
are perfect, and this also is effected in three

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ways; by pureness and singleness of heart,
by love, and by the contemplation of God,
the Creator of all things, xiv.

THE LIFE OF CHRIST

We ought truly to know and believe that no
life is so noble, or good, or pleasing to God,
as the life of Christ. And yet it is to nature
and selfishness the most bitter of all lives.
For to nature, and selfishness, and the Me, a
life of careless freedom is the sweetest and
pleasantest, but it is not the best; indeed, in
some men it may be the worst. But the life of
Christ, though it be the bitterest of all,
should be preferred above all. And hereby ye
shall know this. There is an inward sight
which is able to perceive the one true good,
how that it is neither this nor that, but that
it is that of which St Paul says: "When that
which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away." By this he signifies
that what is whole and perfect excels all the
parts, and that all which is imperfect, and in
part, is as nothing compared to what is
perfect. In like manner, all knowledge of the
parts is swallowed up when the whole is
known. And where the good is known, it
cannot fail to be desired and loved so
greatly, that all other love, with which a man
has loved himself, and other things, vanishes
away. Moreover, that inward sight perceives
what is best and noblest in all things, and
loves it in the one true good, and for the
sake of the true good alone. Where this
inward sight exists, a man perceives truly
that the life of Christ is the best and noblest
life, and that it is therefore to be chosen
above all others; and therefore he willingly
accepts and endures it, without hesitation or
complaining, whether it is pleasing or
displeasing to nature and other men, and
whether he himself likes or dislikes it, and
finds it sweet or bitter. Therefore, whenever
this perfect and true good is known, the life
of Christ must be followed, until the decease
of the body. If any man vainly deems
otherwise, he is deceived, and if any man
says otherwise, he tells a lie; and in
whatever man the life of Christ is not, he will
never know the true good or the eternal
truth.

But let no one imagine that we can attain to
this true light and perfect knowledge, and to
the life of Christ, by much questioning, or by
listening to others, or by reading and study,
or by ability and deep learning. For so long as
a man is occupied with anything which is this
or that, whether it be himself or any other
creature; or does anything, or forms plans, or
opinions, or objects, he comes not to the life
of Christ. Christ Himself declared as much,
for He said: "If any man will come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross,
and follow Me." "And if any man hate not his
father and mother, and wife and children, and
brethren and sisters, yea and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple." He means
this: "He who does not give up and abandon
everything can never know My eternal truth,

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nor attain to My life." And even if this had
not been declared to us, the truth itself
proclaims it, for so verily it is. But as long as
a man holds fast to the rudiments and
fragments of this world, and above all to
himself, and is conversant with them, and
sets great store by them, he is deceived and
blinded, and perceives what is good only in
so far as is convenient and agreeable to
himself and profitable to his own objects.

Since then the life of Christ is in all ways
most bitter to nature and the self and the
Me--for in the true life of Christ nature and
the self and the Me must be abandoned and
lost and suffered to die completely— therefore
in all of us nature has a horror of it, and
deems it evil and unjust and foolish; and she
strives after such a life as shall be most
agreeable and pleasant to ourselves; and
says, and believes too in her blindness, that
such a life is the best of all. Now nothing is
so agreeable and pleasant to nature as a free
and careless manner of life. To this therefore
she clings, and takes enjoyment in herself
and her powers, and thinks only of her own
peace and comfort. And this is especially
likely to happen, when a man has high
natural gifts of reason, for reason mounts up
in its own light and by its own power, till at
last it comes to think itself the true eternal
light, and gives itself out to be such; and it
is thus deceived in itself, and deceives others
at the same time, people who know no better
and are prone to be so deceived, xviii.-xx.

UNION WITH GOD

In what does union with God consist? It
means that we should be indeed purely,
simply, and wholly at one with the one
eternal Will of God, or altogether without
will, so that the created will should flow out
into the eternal Will and be swallowed up
and lost in it, so that the eternal Will alone
should do and leave undone in us. Now
observe what may be of use to us in
attaining this object. Religious exercises
cannot do this, nor words, nor works, nor any
creature or work done by a creature. We must
therefore give up and renounce all things,
suffering them to be what they are, and enter
into union with God. Yet the outward things
must be; and sleeping and waking, walking
and standing still, speaking and being silent,
must go on as long as we live.

But when this union truly comes to pass and
is established, the inner man henceforth
stands immoveable in this union; as for the
outer man, God allows him to be moved
hither and thither, from this to that, among
things which are necessary and right. So the
outer man says sincerely, "I have no wish to
be or not to be, to live or die, to know or be
ignorant, to do or leave undone; I am ready
for all that is to be or ought to be, and
obedient to whatever I have to do or suffer."
Thus the outer man has no purpose except to
do what in him lies to further the eternal
Will. As for the inner man, it is truly

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perceived that he shall stand immoveable,
"though the outer man must needs be
moved. And if the inner man has any
explanation of the actions of the outer man,
he says only that such things as are ordained
by the eternal Will must be and ought to be.
It is thus when God Himself dwells in a man;
as we plainly see in the case of Christ.
Moreover, where there is this union, which is
the outflow of the Divine light and dwells in
its beams, there is no spiritual pride nor
boldness of spirit, but unbounded humility
and a lowly broken heart; there is also an
honest and blameless walk, justice, peace,
contentment, and every virtue. Where these
are not, there is no true union. For even as
neither this thing nor that can bring about or
further this union, so nothing can spoil or
hinder it, except the man himself with his
self-will, which does him this great injury. Be
well assured of this, xxvii., xxviii.

THE FALSE LIGHT

Now I must tell you what the False Light is,
and what belongs to it. All that is contrary to
the true light belongs to the false. It belongs
of necessity to the true light that it never
seeks to deceive, nor consents that anyone
should be injured or deceived; and it cannot
be deceived itself. But the false light both
deceives others, and is deceived itself. Even
as God deceives no man, and wills not that
any should be deceived, so it is with His true
light. The true light is God or Divine, but the
false light is nature or natural. It belongeth
to God, that He is neither this nor that, and
that He requires nothing in the man whom He
has made to be partaker in the Divine nature,
except goodness as goodness and for the
sake of goodness. This is the token of the
true light. But it belongs to the creature, and
to nature, to be something, this or that, and
to intend and seek something, this or that,
and not simply what is good without asking
Why. And as God and the true light are
without all self-will, selfishness, and self-
Seeking, so the "I, Me, and Mine" belong to
the false light, which in everything seeks
itself and its own ends, and not goodness for
the sake of goodness. This is the character of
the natural or carnal man in each of us. Now
observe how it first comes to be deceived. It
does not desire or choose goodness for its
own sake, but desires and chooses itself and
its own ends rather than the highest good;
and this is an error and the first deception.
Secondly, it fancies itself to be God, when it
is nothing but nature. And because it feigns
itself to be God, it takes to itself what
belongs to God; and not that which belongs
to God when He is made man, or when He
dwells in a Godlike man; but that which
belongs to God as He is in eternity without
the creature. God, they say, and say truly,
needs nothing, is free, exempt from toil,
apart by Himself, above all things: He is
unchangeable, immoveable, and whatever He
does is well done, "so will I be," says the
false light. "The more like one is to God, the
better one is; I therefore will be like God and

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will be God, and will sit and stand at His
right hand." This is what Lucifer the Evil Spirit
also said. Now God in eternity is without
contradiction, suffering, and grief, and
nothing can injure or grieve Him. But with
God as He is made man it is otherwise. The
false light thinks itself to be above all works,
words, customs, laws, and order, and above
the life which Christ led in the body which He
possessed in His human nature. It also
claims to be unmoved by any works of the
creatures; it cares not whether they be good
or bad, for God or against Him; it keeps itself
aloof from all things, and deems it fitting
that all creatures should serve it. Further, it
says that it has risen beyond the life of
Christ according to the flesh, and that
outward things can no longer touch or pain it,
even as it was with Christ after the
Resurrection. Many other strange and false
notions it cherishes. Moreover, this false light
says that it has risen above conscience and
the sense of sin, and that whatever it does is
right. One of the so-called "Free Spirits" even
said that if he had killed ten men, he would
have as little sense of guilt as if he had
killed a dog. This false light, in so far as it
fancies itself to be God, is Lucifer, the Evil
Spirit; but in so far as it makes of no account
the life of Christ, it is Antichrist. It says,
indeed, that Christ was without sense of sin,
and that therefore we should be so. We may
reply that Satan also is without sense of sin,
and is none the better for that. What is a
sense of sin? It is when we perceive that
man has turned away from God in his will,
and that this is man's fault, not God's, for
God is guiltless of sin. Now, who knows
himself to be free from sin, save Christ only?
Scarce will any other affirm this. So he who is
without sense of sin is either Christ or the
Evil Spirit. But where the true light is, there
is a true and just life such as God loves. And
if a man's life is not perfect, as was that of
Christ, still it is modelled and built on His,
and His life is loved, together with modesty,
order, and the other virtues, and all self-will,
the "I, Me, and Mine," is lost; nothing is
devised or sought for except goodness for its
own sake. But where the false light is, men
no longer regard the life of Christ and the
virtues, but they seek and purpose what is
convenient and pleasant to nature. From this
arises a false liberty, whereby men become
regardless of everything. For the true light is
the seed of God, and bringeth forth the fruits
of God; but the false light is the seed of the
Devil, and where it is sown, the fruits of the
Devil, nay the very Devil himself, spring up.
xl.

LIGHT AND LOVE

It may be asked, What is it like to be a
partaker of the Divine nature, or a Godlike
man? The answer is, that he who is steeped
in, or illuminated by, the eternal and Divine
Light, and kindled or consumed by the eternal
and Divine Love, is a Godlike man and a
partaker of the Divine nature. But this light
or knowledge is of no avail without love. You

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may understand this if you remember that a
man who knows very well the difference
between virtue and wickedness, but does not
love virtue, is not virtuous, in that he obeys
vice. But he who loves virtue follows after it,
and his love makes him an enemy to
wickedness, so that he will not perform any
wicked act and hates wickedness in others;
and he loves virtue so that he would not
leave any virtue unperformed even if he had
the choice, not for the sake of reward, but
from love of virtue. To such a man virtue
brings its own reward, and he is content with
it, and would part with it for no riches. Such a
man is already virtuous, or in the way to
become so. And the truly virtuous man would
not cease to be so to gain the whole world.
He would rather die miserably. The case of
justice is the same. Many men know well
what is just and unjust, but yet neither are
nor ever will be just men. For they love not
justice, and therefore practise wickedness
and injustice. If a man loved justice, he
would do no unjust deed; he would feel so
great abhorrence and anger against injustice
whenever he saw it that he would be willing
to do and suffer anything in order to put an
end to injustice, and that men might be
made just. He would rather die than commit
an injustice, and all for love of justice. To
him, justice brings her own reward, she
rewards him with herself, and so the just
man would rather die a thousand deaths than
live as an unjust man. The same may be said
of truth. A man may know very well what is
truth or a lie, but if he loves not the truth, he
is not a true man. If, however, he loves it, it
is with truth as with justice. And of justice
Isaiah speaks in the fifth chapter: "Woe unto
them that call evil good, and good evil, that
put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter." Thus we may understand that
knowledge and light avail nothing without
love. We see the truth of this in the case of
the Evil One. He perceives and knows good
and evil, right and wrong: but since he has
no love for the good that he sees, he
becomes not good. It is true indeed that
Love must be led and instructed by
knowledge, but if knowledge is not followed
by Love, it will be of no avail. So also with
God and Divine things. Although a man know
much about God and Divine things, and even
dream that he sees and understands what
God Himself is, yet if he have not Love, he
will never become like God or a partaker of
the Divine nature. But if Love be added to his
knowledge, he cannot help cleaving to God,
and forsaking all that is not God or from God,
and hating it and fighting with it, and finding
it a cross and burden. And this Love so unites
a man to God, that he can never again be
separated from Him. xli.

PARADISE

What is Paradise? All things that are. For all
things are good and pleasant, and may
therefore fitly be called Paradise. It is also
said, that Paradise is an outer court of

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heaven. In the same way, this world is truly
an outer court of the eternal, or of eternity;
and this is specially true of any temporal
things or creatures which manifest the
Eternal or remind us of eternity; for the
creatures are a guide and path to God and
eternity. Thus the world is an outer court of
eternity, and therefore it may well be called a
Paradise, for so indeed it is. And in this
Paradise all things are lawful except one tree
and its fruit. That is to say, of all things that
exist, nothing is forbidden or contrary to God,
except one thing only. That one thing is self-
will, or to will otherwise than as the eternal
Will would have it. Remember this. For God
says to Adam (that is, to every man)
"Whatever thou art, or doest, or leavest
undone, or whatever happens, is lawful if it
be done for the sake of and according to My
will, and not according to thy will. But all
that is done from thy will is contrary to the
eternal Will." Not that everything which is so
done is in itself contrary to the eternal Will,
but in so far as it is done from a different
will, or otherwise than from the Eternal and
Divine Will. I.

WILL AND SELF-WILL

Some may ask: "If this tree, Self-W ill, is so
contrary to God and to the eternal will, why
did God create it, and place it in Paradise?
We may answer: a man who is truly humble
and enlightened does not ask God to reveal
His secrets to him, or enquire why God does
this or that, or prevents or allows this or
that; he only desires to know how he may
please God, and become as nothing in
himself, having no will of his own, and that
the eternal will may live in him, and possess
him wholly, unhampered by any other will,
and how what is due may be paid to the
Eternal Will, by him and through him. But
there is another answer to this question. For
we may say: the most noble and gracious gift
that is bestowed on any creature is the
Reason and the Will. These two are so
intimately connected that the one cannot be
anywhere without the other. If it were not for
these two gifts, there would be no
reasonable creatures, but only brutes and
brutality; and this would be a great loss, for
God would then never receive His due, or
behold Himself and His attributes exhibited
in action; a thing which ought to be, and is,
necessary to perfection. Now Perception and
Reason are conferred together with will, in
order that they may teach the will and also
themselves, that neither perception nor will
is of itself, or to itself, nor ought to seek or
obey itself. Nor must they turn themselves to
their own profit, nor use themselves for their
own ends; for they belong to Him from whom
they proceed, and they shall submit to Him,
and flow back to Him, and become nothing in
themselves— that is, in their selfhood.

But now you must consider more in detail
something concerning the will. There is an
Eternal Will, which is a first principle and
substance in God, apart from all works and

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all externalisation; and the same will is in
man, or the creature, willing and bringing to
pass certain things. For it pertains to the
will, to will something. For what else does it
exist? It would be a vain thing if it had no
work to do, and this it cannot have without
the creature. And so there must needs be
creatures, and God will have them, in order
that by their means the will may be
exercised, and may work, though in God it
must be without work. Therefore the will in
the creature, which we call the created will,
is as truly God's as the eternal will, and is
not from the creature.

And since God cannot exercise His will, in
working and effecting changes, without the
creature, He is pleased to do so in and with
the creature. Therefore the will is not given
to be exercised by the creature, but by God
alone, who has the right to carry into effect
His own will by the will which is in man, but
yet is God's will. And in any man or creature,
in whom it should be thus, purely and simply,
the will of that man or creature would be
exercised not by the man but by God, and
thus it would not be self-will, and the man
would only will as God wills; for God Himself,
and not man, would be moving the will. Thus
the will would be united with the Eternal
Will, and would flow into it; although the
man would retain his sense of liking and
disliking, pleasure and pain. But nothing is
complained of, except what is contrary to
God. And there is no rejoicing except in God
alone, and in that which belongs to Him. And
as with the will, so is it with all the other
faculties of man; they are all of God and not
of man. And when the will is wholly given up
to God, the other faculties will certainly be
given up too; and God will have what is due
to Him.

No one may call that which is free his own,
and he who makes it his own, doeth
injustice. Now in all the sphere of freedom
nothing is so free as the will; and he who
makes it his own, and allows it not to remain
in its excellent freedom, and free nobleness,
and free exercise, does it a great injustice.
This is what is done by the devil, and Adam,
and all their followers. But he who leaves the
will in its noble freedom does right; and this
is what Christ, and all who follow Him, do.
And he who deprives the will of its noble
freedom, and makes it his own, must
necessarily be oppressed with cares and
discontent, and disquietude, and every kind
of misery, and this will be his lot throughout
time and eternity. But he who leaves the will
in its freedom has contentment and peace
and rest and blessedness, through time and
eternity. Where there is a man whose will is
not enslaved, he is free indeed, and in
bondage to no man. He is one of those to
whom Christ said: "The truth shall make you
free"; and He adds immediately afterwards:
"If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be
free indeed."

Moreover, observe that whenever the will
chooses unhindered whatever it will, it
always and in all cases chooses what is
noblest and best, and hates whatever is not
noble and good, and regards it as an offence.
And the more free and unhampered the will

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is, the more it is grieved by evil, by injustice,
by iniquity, and all manner of sin. We see
this in Christ, whose will was the purest and
freest and the least brought into bondage of
any man's who ever lived. So was the human
nature of Christ the most free and pure of all
creatures; and yet He felt the deepest
distress, pain, and wrath at sin that any
creature ever felt. But when men claim
freedom for themselves, in such a way as to
feel no sorrow or anger at sin, and all that is
contrary to God, and say that we must take
no notice of anything, and care for nothing,
but be, in this life, what Christ was after the
resurrection, and so forth, this is not the true
and Divine freedom that springs from the true
and Divine light, but a natural, unrighteous,
false, deceiving freedom, which springs from
the natural, false, deceitful light.

If there were no self-will, there would be no
proprietorship. There is no proprietorship in
heaven; and this is why contentment, peace,
and blessedness are there. If anyone in
heaven were so bold as to call anything his
own, he would immediately be cast out into
hell, and become an evil spirit. But in hell
everyone will have self-will, and therefore in
hell is every kind of wretchedness and
misery. And so it is also on earth. But if
anyone in hell could rid himself of his self-
will and call nothing his own, he would pass
out of hell into heaven. And if a man, while
here on earth, could be entirely rid of self-will
and proprietorship, and stand up free and at
liberty in the true light of God, and continue
therein, he would be sure to inherit the
kingdom of heaven. For he who has anything,
or who desires to have anything of his own,
is a slave; and he who has nothing of his
own, nor desires to have anything, is free
and at liberty, and is in bondage to no man.
li.

UNION THROUGH CHRIST

Observe now how the Father draws men to
Christ. When something of the perfect good
is revealed and made manifest within the
human soul, as it were in a sudden flash, the
soul conceives a desire to draw near to the
perfect goodness, and to unite herself with
the Father. And the more strongly she longs
and desires, the more is revealed to her; and
the more is revealed to her, the more she is
drawn to the Father, and the more is her
desire kindled. So the soul is drawn and
kindled into an union with the eternal
goodness. And this is the drawing of the
Father; and so the soul is taught by Him who
draws her to Himself, that she cannot
become united with Him unless she can come
to Him by means of the life of Christ, liii.

In his Introduction to the "Imitation of
Christ," in this series.

iile.gr. she distinguishes, as Eckhart does,
between God and the Godhead.

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riiilT he "three propositions" of Amalric are--l.
"Deus est omnia." 2. Every Christian, as a
condition of salvation, must believe that he
is a member of Christ. 3. To those who are in
charity no sin is imputed.

Preger is probably wrong in identifying
him with a "brother Eckhart," Prior of
Frankfort, who about 1320 was delated to the
head of the Order as suspectus de malis
familiaritatibus, words which can only mean
"keeping bad company" in a moral sense, not
"consorting with heretics," as Preger
suggests. Eckhart's character, so far as we
know, was never assailed, even by his
enemies, and it is therefore probable that
"brother Eckhart" was a different person.

I have abridged the bull considerably, but
have included all the main accusations.

XyjJSee pages 13, 16.

XvjjJSee pages 14, 15.

rviii See page 1.

JjxJThis is an obscure point in Eckhart's
philosophy, too technical to be discussed
here; but Eckhart's doctrine of God is
certainly more orthodox and less pantheistic
than those of 'Dionysius' and Scotus Erigena.

\x] Cf. St Augustine, In Joann. Ev. Tract.
xxxix. 10: praeteritum et futurum invenio in
omni motu rerum: in veritate quae manet
praeteritum et futurum non invenio, sed
solum praesens."

TxilT his doctrine is fully explained by St.
Augustine, Epist. 237 , who follows Plotinus,
Enn. vi. 4-6.

TxiilT his queer word occurs for the first time,
I think, in Jerome's notes to the first chapter
of Ezekiel. He writes the word in Greek, and
explains it as that part of the soul which
always opposes vices. The word is common in
Bonaventura and other scholastic mystics,
and is often misspelt synderesis.

It must, however, be said that Preger is
too ready to assume that the logical
development of Eckhart's system away from
Thomist scholasticism can be traced as a
gradual process in his writings, the order of
which is very uncertain. We are not justified
in saying in a positive manner that Eckhart's
philosophy passed through three phases, in
the first of which the primacy is held by the
will, in the second by the created reason, and
in the third by the uncreated reason.

[xiv] See pages 14, 15.

xv] C.B. Upton: "Hibbert Lectures," p. 17.

/O.A.E. Taylor: "The Problem of Conduct,"
PP. 464-5.

fxvi i See pages 71-2.

[xviii See pages 12-13.

See, for example, Prof. W. James'
"Varieties of Religions Experience," P. 400.

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Jacob Bshme's experience is typical:
"Suddenly did my spirit break through into
the innermost birth or geniture of the Deity,
and there was I embraced with love, as a
bridegroom embraces his dearly beloved
bride. But the greatness of the triumphing
that was in the spirit I cannot express in
speech or writing; nor can it be compared to
anything but the resurrection of the dead to
life. In this light my spirit suddenly saw
through all; even in herbs and grass it knew
God, who and what He is," etc. Dr Johnson
was, no doubt, right in thinking that "Jacob"
would have been wiser, and "more like St
Paul," if he had not attempted to utter the
unutterable things which he saw.

The extracts from the "Theologia
Germanica" will show that this treatise
represents a later and less paradoxical form
of mystical thought than Eckhart's.

The maxim, however, is much older than
Suso.

Royce: "The World and the Individual"
vol. i. p. 193.

So in the "Lignum Vitae" of Laurentius
Justinianus we read: "Let self-will cease, and
there will be no more hell."

vJ'The Inner Way," being thirty-six
sermons by John Tauler. Translated by A.W.
Hutton, M.A.

On the psychology of ecstatic mysticism
see Leuba, in the Revue Philosophique, July
and November 1902.

"Varieties of Religious Experience," p.

13.

Maudsley: "Natural Causes and
Supernatural Seemings," p. 256.

See Leuba: "Tendances religieuses chez
les mystiques chrZtiens" in Revue
Philosophique, Nov. 1902.

"Theologia Germanica," translated by
Susanna Winkworth. Macmillan & Co., 1893.

xi"|"Varieties of Religious Experience,"
1902.

MlI"Personal Idealism," 1902.

"Varieties of Religious Experience," p.

103.

iv"|"In Tune with the Infinite," by R.W.
Trine (Bell & Sons, 1902). Fifty-ninth
thousand. The extract appears to be a
quotation from another writer, but no
reference is given.

:v]Compare Eckhart's saying that the eye
with which I see God is the same as the eye
with which He sees me.

OjV'In Tune with the Infinite," pp. 58,

119.

The numbers refer to pages in
Pfeiffer's edition.

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Kviiil The numbers refer to the Sermons in
Hamberger's edition of 1864.

The reference is to 1 Peter iii. 8.

[xllThe time would, I suppose, be about half-
an-hour. Many other ecstatics have named
this as the normal duration of trance.

Or, "spoke the eternal Wisdom (= the
Word of God) in his heart."

John i. 3, 4. This punctuation, whereby
the words "that which was made" are referred
to the clause which follows, and not to that
which precedes, is adopted by most of the
Greek fathers, and is still maintained by
some good commentators--e.g. Bishop
Westcott.

rxliiil Ecclus. xxiv. 19.
[xliv] Ecclus, xl. 20.

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